


What You Don't Know

by Gabrielle



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-17
Updated: 2014-03-18
Packaged: 2017-12-20 12:07:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 46,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/887093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gabrielle/pseuds/Gabrielle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Angel is just back from Hell and he - and Willow - are discovering that something's not quite the same about him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Not in the Know

Not in the Know  
  
  
  
Another night at the Bronze with her friends and Willow’s doing her usual seat-warming routine while everyone else dances along with way too much thinking, which you’d assume would be impossible in a place where the music’s this loud, but hey, she’s Willow and thinky is pretty much her normal state. What is she thinking tonight? She’s thinking that she doesn’t know what’s going on.   
  
Angel’s back from Hell. That’s good – except for the part where Buffy lied to all of them about it – and she’s glad he’s not trapped there, with his soul, suffering for crimes he committed without it, because that just doesn’t seem fair at all. But he’s been… weird.  
  
She doesn’t get it. Yeah, okay, maybe he’s still going through some kind of post-traumatic stress thing, which makes sense, since, hey, hell, but still… No, he’s giving her a wiggins.  
  
Like the other night. Okay, he saved her life from that evil Gwendolyn Post lady, and that was really cool of him and all, but there was something about… Or maybe she’s just weird about _him_. That could be it. Maybe deep down she hasn’t processed the fact that he’s not the same vampire who killed Ms. Calendar – and her fish.  
  
But as much as she tries to tell herself that it’s all in her head, she can’t quite get herself to completely believe it. He keeps _looking_ at her, and not in the ‘these are my eyes and they’re wandering and they happened to land on you’ way. Not in the ‘I’m looking at you because I know you’ way either. No, he’s been looking at her in this intense, creepy way that makes her think of that night in the hallway when he lost his soul.  
  
It suddenly occurs to her, though, that maybe there’s a whole other, equally unsettling explanation for her wiggins – guilt. Because of the Xander-smoochies.   
  
Oh god. She’s totally projecting her own evil onto Angel. That’s it. That has to be it.   
  
So okay, as soon as she gets the whole inappropriateness out of her thoughts and actions, not only will she be a good person and a good girlfriend again, but – bonus! – she’ll see Angel as just Buffy’s totally impossible soul mate and the gang’s occasional undead ally who barely knows she’s alive even though she gave him back his soul. Phew. Because truthfully? That’s the way she likes it.  
  
Getting up after finally finishing her soda – and can she just say that it’s especially watered down, even by the Bronze’s record standards – she heads for the ladies room.   
  
Before she can get there though, she’s confronted in the dark hall between the restrooms and the door from the alley. “Willow.”  
  
It’s him. Angel. He’s just gonna ask her where Buffy is, she’s sure of it, so she gets there ahead of him. “Buffy’s out there dancing. Not with anybody,” she hastens to explain, “She’s just dancing.”  
  
There’s this silence for a moment and then Angel asks, “Are you okay?”  
  
Why is he asking her that? “Why are you… don’t I seem okay?” Why no, you seem like a big, spazzy dork.  
  
Angel doesn’t say that, though. He smiles, sort of, and, because her thoughts no longer make sense where Angel is concerned, she’s not happy about it. He takes her arm, pulling her into the darkest corner. Huh? What’s going on?  
  
Just when it seems like her paranoia is going to seem totally not paranoid at all, she’s saved as someone else enters the hallway. “Hey. I was looking for you.”  
  
“Oz!” she cries, almost leaping into his arms. Is he the most wonderful boyfriend in the world or what? Because as of now, he gets her vote. She turns to where her creepy companion was standing, but he’s gone.  
  
Good riddance.  
  
“What did Angel want?”  
  
“I don’t know,” she shrugs. It’s true too. She doesn’t know.  
  
She doesn’t _want_ to know.  
  
Taking Oz’s arm, she vows to make him the center of her life and her thoughts from now on. There won’t be any room for anyone else. No more Xander-kissage… and no more worrying about Angel.  
  
Xander should be an easy fix. After all, he has Cordelia and, like her, he doesn’t want to ruin his life over some weird fluke-thing.  
  
Angel should be even easier, because that’s all in her head… right?  
  
She keeps telling herself that as she and Oz head back towards the crowded dance floor, her original mission forgotten and no longer needed. Because dark corners? She really wants to avoid them now.  
  
Of course, it’s easy to keep out of them in the Bronze. If only it were that easy to escape the ones in her head.  
  
  
  
The End


	2. Unknowing

Unknowing  
  
  
  
Another night has fallen and he’s still getting used to the way time passes – it wasn’t anything like this in Hell. Buffy doesn’t get it, that he was there for hundreds of years, not just the few months which seem to have gone by here, but then again, has he really tried to make her see? No, he hasn’t.  
  
He’s afraid. Since he’s been back, all he’s wanted is to be exactly who he once was. He isn’t there yet, but he pretends as best he can and it seems to at least convince Buffy. That’s exactly what he wants… so why is there this nagging dissatisfaction, almost anger, like a shadow threatening to swallow him up? If there’s anything that’s still true after so much else has been thrown into chaos and confusion by his torment in Hell, it’s his love for Buffy and her position as the center of his world. She is the light that chases away the darkness. His feelings for her are unchanged and unchangeable.   
  
But if that’s true, then why does he need to remind himself so often? Why doesn’t he just take it for granted the way he knows he used to? And why does he find himself thinking of Willow?  
  
Of course it doesn’t take him a moment to answer his own questions. After all that time when his very identity had been burned away by endless pain and torment the likes of which he can’t find the words to even describe, it stands to reason that the mantle of who he was – _is_ – doesn’t wrap around him as naturally as it once did. And as for Willow… well, Buffy herself told him she was the one who gave him back his soul.  
  
He tries not to think about the fact that he hadn’t needed her to tell him, to pretend that that isn’t even true, just his mind playing tricks on him.  
  
Which it is. It’s not as if he’s all the way back to normal yet and any number of vagaries can be explained away by that. Such as the other night – the night when he let Buffy fight by herself while he shielded Willow all the while. He did that because Buffy is the Slayer and Willow is a fragile mortal who needed his protection. Perhaps also as a thank you for saving his soul.   
  
And no, he doesn’t think about Willow too much, or more than is entirely proper, even if, in the past few days, he’s thought about her more than he can recall doing in all the time he knew her before. It’s not jealousy he feels as he processes the two scents she bears. He’s just concerned, as a friend – which is what he is – about what she’s obviously doing.   
  
Not that it matters to him - not really – and if his demon rattles its chains when she’s near, it’s because she’s the one who forged those chains, not that the ache of needs unfulfilled is calling to that dark side of him he knows is only part of him when he doesn’t have his soul anyway.  
  
All of this introspection is pointless and he shakes himself, as if to slough it off. Soon he’ll be completely back to his old self – his _true_ self – and everything will be all right.   
  
In the meantime, here he is at the Bronze. Buffy is sure to be here and her presence alone will put him back on surer footing. He slips in the back door, but instead of heading into the main part of the club, he stays here in the darkened shadows of the hallway – those shadows that are more comfortable for him than a strobe-lit dance floor will ever be. A moment later, a familiar figure is inches away, but he tells himself that sensing her approach had nothing to do with why he’s back here even as he says her name softly. “Willow.”  
  
She starts and when she turns to face him, the whites of her eyes shine in the dim light. Immediately, she starts babbling. “Buffy’s out there dancing. Not with anybody,” she pauses in her breathless ramble, “She’s just dancing.” Her words make it painfully obvious that she doesn’t share any of the heightened connection he’s felt, which should reassure him that he’s right about it not being real in the first place. Somehow though, standing here next to her, it does something else. Especially since her uncomfortable manner makes it plain she’d rather be talking to anyone but him.  
  
Now would be the perfect time for him to end this – to say something like ‘thank you for my soul’ and then go back to the relationship he remembers… cordial distance. But instead he asks, “Are you okay?” and he knows as he says that it’s calculated to prolong this encounter. What is he doing?  
  
“Why are you… don’t I seem okay?” She’s almost trembling and he suddenly realizes he was wrong… about everything. That connection – it’s real, because she feels it too. Taking her arm, he pulls her further into the darkness.  
  
To talk.   
  
But then… “Hey. I was looking for you.”  
  
It’s her wolf; her blind, foolish wolf.   
  
Letting her go – not interested in staying to hear whatever untruths she tells one of the two boys who are failing her – Angel slips back out the rear entrance and into the night with the rest of the shadows. He might as well go home – for now. But this isn’t over.   
  
He and Willow will be having that talk.  
  
  
The End.


	3. Ball of Confusion

Ball of Confusion  
  
  
  
This can’t be happening. She was not just caught in Xander’s arms by her boyfriend and Xander’s girlfriend while waiting to be slaughtered by an evil vampire and Cordelia is not in the hospital after being impaled.  
  
But she was and Cordelia is and yes, this is happening. Her life is completely destroyed. The worst part of that, though? Worse than losing Oz’s love and Xander’s friendship and Buffy’s respect? The worst part is that it’s all her own fault.   
  
Oh god this hurts. It hurts like something is tearing away at her insides with sharp, terrible claws and it won’t stop. It just won’t stop.   
  
Why? Why did she do this? At the club the other night she was so sure she’d gotten this all straightened out in her head and that this stupid fluke-kissing-thing was never, ever going to happen again. She loves Oz. Oz, Oz, Oz. And Xander loves Cordelia. So how… why… oh god it hurts.  
  
She wants to blame it on Spike – on being kidnapped and scared – but she can’t, can she? Because the whole reason she and Xander got kidnapped was because she was so desperate that she was trying to use magic to make this attraction-to-the-wrong-people thing go away. So it really is all her fault and if she wasn’t so bad and horrible and evil, everything would be okay – but it isn’t, because she is.  
  
Her bedroom floor isn’t the most comfortable place for all this anguish, but she figures that mortifying the flesh at least a little is pretty much called for in cases like this, so here she is, in her pajamas, curled up on the carpet, sobbing. She’s so caught up in angst, both internal and that caused by the scratchy feel of polyester-blend-fibers against sorrow-heated skin, that it takes her a minute to realize that someone is knocking at the balcony door. Is it Oz? What if it’s Oz? What if he wants to talk… or maybe forgive her? Oh god. Oz. Oh no. She’s in her ugly, I-hate-myself pajamas and her skin is all blotchy from crying and…   
  
She leaps to her feet, tries to be surreptitious as she wipes her face quickly, and then whips around to see… that it isn’t Oz. No, she can’t stop her expression from revealing her disappointment as she trudges over to open the door. “Hi, Angel.”  
  
If his feelings are hurt, she’s… no, she’s not sorry. He’s the only person in town to whom she _doesn’t_ owe an apology and she has a right to not make any unnecessary apologies tonight, thank you very much, because she needs to save all the apology-energy she has for the people before whom she’ll be groveling for the next –oh – _million_ years.   
  
There’s a hazard to getting too caught up in her own swirling thoughts, though, because before she can stop herself, she says, “Come in,” and – hey presto! – the vampire who killed her fish is back in her room. Great. Or then again, maybe it really _is_ great because if he lost his soul, he could kill her and then she wouldn’t be so miserable anymore. And hey – at least then there’d be a good reason for him to be here because otherwise she can’t think of one.  
  
He’s brooding – she can tell – so it doesn’t look like she’ll get the reprieve of a gory death after all. “I wanted to make sure you’re okay.”  
  
Okay, that _sounds_ like a reason, but it really isn’t one because she and Angel aren’t friends. They aren’t. And wait a minute… the last time she saw him… at the Bronze… he asked her the same thing. This visit has officially become creepy and she wants to kick herself for inviting him in even as she kicks herself for being way melodramatic.   
  
“I’m fine,” she says brightly, putting all she’s got into a massively-fraudulent-but-hopefully-succe

ssful attempt at a grin.   
  
He’s giving her the intense, impenetrable look again, the one she was so sure was just her being wacky and paranoid before, although hey, that could still be true and… she nearly trips over the tangle of her own thoughts and it suddenly occurs to her that getting lost inside your head is maybe not the best idea when there’s a vampire in your bedroom. “I really am fine,” she reaffirms, “so you can tell Buffy that I’m okay because I am – okay, that is, although I don’t know what else you’d have thought I meant.” Goody. She’s babbling. No way he won’t realize she’s almost shaking with nerves.  
  
“I’m not here for Buffy.” The words are almost spat out and he seems irritated even as she realizes how much she’d hoped he _was_. This needs to make sense. Good, calm, everything-the-way-it-was sense. Because there are other kinds and she doesn’t want it to make any of those. “I’m here because I wanted to make sure… you’re all right.”  
  
There was a pause in there that she doesn’t understand and right now she’s amending her plea because something is telling her that the sense she’s looking for is not to be found so if everything could just stay completely confusing, she’ll be just fine with that.   
  
“Well, I am. So you’ve seen me and I’m fine and… that’s it.” Yes, she’s this close to outright rude and she might as well have said ‘here’s your hat, what’s your hurry’, but she’s got a lot more crying and self-hatred to get to before she can even think about trying to get any sleep and Angel needs to not be here anymore.  
  
Unfortunately, Angel doesn’t take the hint. “You’ve been crying.”  
  
All right. That’s it. Because they do not have a personal question kind of relationship, even if she _did_ give him back his soul. “That’s not really any of your business,” she says, softening the words with her usual ‘gee whiz’ manner.  
  
There’s a flash of what she can’t prevent herself from perceiving as anger in his eyes. She doesn’t want to know this. She has too much… but maybe it’s justice or something for all the terrible things for which she’s responsible. Cordelia is probably still in surgery, huh? Anyway, nothing she could ever see in Angel’s eyes could be as bad as what she saw in Oz’s tonight.   
  
That’s the absolute truth, right?  
  
“I’m your friend,” Angel says and the expression on his face, the timbre of his voice tell her she might have been wrong. But then again, it could totally be melodrama, and she holds onto that thought.  
  
“No offense, Angel, but there’s different kinds of friends. There’s the kind of friends who talk about personal stuff, which we aren’t, and then there’s the kind of friends who fight evil together and _don’t_ talk about personal stuff, which is the kind we _are_.”  
  
Before she can back away, he invades her space and puts his hand on her shoulder, forcing her to stay put or act like she’s running away from him. No, she doesn’t want to. She doesn’t. It’s not like she needs to. That’s just ridiculous and goes way past melodramatic and into wacko-cuckoo-paranoid-calling-the-UFO-hotline land. “Why… We could be the other kind of friends. I think right about now you could use one,” he says and no, she is so _not_ shuddering at the way his hand feels and the sound of his voice and…  
  
Okay, just hand her a tinfoil hat because yes, she is having a major wiggins. “Thanks. But right now I really just want to be alone.” Worried about his reaction, she adds, “Oh but you’re being really nice and I appreciate it and all.”  
  
“You can talk to me.”  
  
It’s ludicrous and absurd, but she’s actually feeling fear and she knows she’s trembling and that he can feel it, because his hand is still on her shoulder. “I need to be alone,” she begs, not able to look at him because she can’t believe how bizarre this is and she’s suddenly remembering that he’s Spike’s sire and she’s flashing back to that bottle at her throat. “Please?”  
  
His hand is under her chin and he… a part of her brain wants to say ‘forces’, but it’s not really like that – it isn’t – because he gently tilts her chin up so that her eyes meet his.  
  
You know, Buffy used to talk about how wonderful it was to get lost in his eyes. Willow always thought that was romantic but now she thinks Buffy might actually be crazy, as in needs-serious-professional-help, because there is nothing pleasant about what’s lurking in those depths. It’s like quicksand in there and she feels utterly helpless. But then Angel says “I’ll go” in a low voice and she feels as if she might work herself free after all.   
  
“Thank you,” she breathes and the rush of exhilaration she experiences just from the loss of the sensation of his touch is grotesquely disproportionate to the actual event, which, to be frank, is just a guy she barely knows backing away after not actually doing anything major to her. Why then does she feel like she escaped a fate far more frightening than what Spike might have had in store?  
  
It might be because she’s an emotional wreck along with being a heartless, two-timing skank. That works as an explanation, especially as Angel slips back out her door and into the night, leaving her alone with memories of _real_ badness – as in all the terrible deeds she’s done.  
  
In minutes, she’s on her bed, staring at a picture of her and Oz in happier days, clutching the Pez witch he gave her and crying her eyes out.  
  
She’s not thinking about Angel’s visit at all.  
  
  
  
The End.


	4. A Taste of the Apple

  
A Taste of the Apple  
  
  
  
Angel isn’t sure what to feel, so many contradictory emotions are roiling around within him. What Spike did… He wants to stake the bastard, send him back to the dust to which he should have banished him the moment Drusilla brought him home with her like some stray dog she wanted for a pet.  
  
But Spike is his blood, and ultimately as much his creation as he is Drusilla’s, perhaps more. If he’s honest, he knows the answer is ‘definitely more’.   
  
Which is part of what is troubling him. Because somewhere in that answer is another answer to another question: Why had Spike chosen Willow? She’s hardly the only witch in the world. Surely he could have found one in Brazil, or barring that, somewhere at least far closer to the land to which he’d emigrated, but if it had to be Sunnydale, there are witches here of more experience and practiced skill. After all, other than restoring his soul, what has Willow actually done?  
  
Ah, but that’s the rub, isn’t it? And perhaps it’s what drew Spike to kidnap her – that connection… that connection…   
  
Is that spell the reason Angel can’t get her out of his thoughts either?   
  
This isn’t happening to him. Since the moment Whistler showed her to him in Los Angeles, Buffy has been all Angel can see. She is the light to his darkness and if her ability to bring him back to humanity was a terrible and deadly illusion, she’s still the closest thing to a savior he has.   
  
It doesn’t hurt that he’s also exactly the type of girl to which he’s always been physically attracted, as both human and vampire. She’s blonde, reasonably buxom, and free of prudishness in dress or manner; the sort of girl who excites envy on one’s arm and excites… other things in private.  
  
But it’s so much more than that, because Buffy is also a warrior, fierce and stalwart and tireless as she saves the world over and over again. She is selfless and brave and wholly devoted to her sacred duty, proving that, ironically enough, by sending him to Hell. Buffy is the woman not only of his dreams, but of his destiny.  
  
Which doesn’t explain at all why he’s at the doors to Willow’s bedroom. But then again, it makes perfect, and blameless sense, doesn’t it? Because she’s been through a lot today – kidnapped by his vicious creation and caught kissing that useless Xander Harris by her milquetoast pseudo-demon of a boyfriend. If she needs anything right now, it’s a friend, someone who won’t get up on their high horse and shame her, and Angel wants to be that friend.  
  
Looking through her sheer curtains, he sees and hears her curled up on her carpet, weeping bitterly. It’s clear she’s all alone, not another heartbeat in the house. Coming here was obviously the right decision. He knocks gently.  
  
Obviously caught up in her despair, it takes her a moment or two to realize that someone is here, but then she suddenly leaps to her feet, back still turned to him. He can tell she’s wiping her eyes and when she finally rushes to the door, she can’t hide the fact that she’s disappointed that he’s the one standing there. “Hi, Angel.” Her voice is dispirited and he tries to tell himself that his feelings aren’t hurt, but it’s a lie and he knows it.  
  
His invitation into her home was revoked long ago and he stands awkwardly at the threshold wondering how to broach that topic to a girl who is, somewhat insultingly, lost in thought, when out of the blue, she blurts out a desultory ‘come in’, and so he does.  
  
Being in here… it brings back memories. Not just of the night he killed her fish and strung them like jewels on a necklace, but of visiting her to look for help with Ford… admitting to her that he felt jealousy for the first time in life or unlife because of Buffy. She’d been so sweet and considerate that night and he hadn’t even thanked her… hadn’t even appreciated what she was offering. They could have been friends. If he hadn’t been so foolish…  
  
… but he’s going to rectify that now. Because if they’re friends, then all of this confusion in his head will shake out and his feelings for Willow will fit and make sense. “I wanted to make sure you’re okay,” he says, providing the explanation for which she hasn’t asked.  
  
She’s not on the same page he is, which is clear when her response to his overture of friendship is a patently false grin and a syrupy chirrup of, “I’m fine.” Does she really think he’ll buy that? Even a stranger could see through it and they’re hardly that. He can’t stop himself from staring and she just intensifies her efforts, though she’s obviously unnerved. “I really am fine, so you can tell Buffy that I’m okay because I am – okay, that is, although I don’t know what else you’d have thought I meant.”  
  
He can’t believe this, though he probably should – she thinks he’s here at Buffy’s behest. He’d laugh at the shakiness of her logic if he was one for jokes, but Hell had anything but a salutary effect on his sense of humour and he’s not in the mood. “I’m not here for Buffy. I’m here because I wanted to make sure…” Just as he’s speaking, his eyes light on a picture of her in happier times that’s tacked to the wall – a picture of her and Xander – and it tells him something he doesn’t want to know about what he wanted to learn by coming here. Clumsily, he manages to finish his sentence the way he’d originally intended. “… you’re all right.”  
  
The fact that she clearly isn’t… he doesn’t understand her manner towards him. His memories of Willow are of a girl almost terrifyingly eager for friendship and understanding. At a time like this, abandoned by everyone after an ordeal that had to be terrifying in and of itself? He knows Spike and he knows damn good and well that the version Buffy gave him of what Willow related to her is nowhere near the whole story of her encounter with his evil creation. A part of him is amazed that Spike left the girl as virginal as he found her. His boy must have been far drunker than he’d thought, and that’s a blessing. But even with that being true, doesn’t Willow need someone to talk to?  
  
Apparently not, or at least she doesn’t seem to think so, as she is now outright rude to him. “Well, I am. So you’ve seen me and I’m fine and… that’s it.” If he were human, she might be bodily shoving him out the door… and then a flash of memory. She actually did do that the night he came here to ask for her help. Of course, back then he hadn’t killed her fish – or her favorite teacher. Now she’s far more frightened of him.   
  
It angers him. There’s this connection which, as much as he denies it, haunts him constantly, and she doesn’t feel it, won’t acknowledge it, won’t grant him the comfort of transforming it into easy friendship.   
  
His anger, though, it’s unfair and he knows it. She’s human and, for all that she’s dabbled in darkness, she has no idea what goes on in the air that no one can breathe. He’ll keep trying, ignoring her obvious attempts to hustle him out of her home, because she really _does_ need consoling. “You’ve been crying.”   
  
She’s not giving an inch. “That’s not really any of your business.” There is, however, a softening of tone which makes him hopeful.  
  
“I’m your friend,” he responds and if there’s an intensity in his voice that makes the words more commanding and insistent than they should be, it’s only there because he desperately wants to repay her for what she’s done for him.   
  
Once again, he’s thwarted. “No offense, Angel, but there’s different kinds of friends. There’s the kind of friends who talk about personal stuff, which we aren’t, and then there’s the kind of friends who fight evil together and _don’t_ talk about personal stuff, which is the kind we _are_.”  
  
This isn’t what he expected at all and he’s fighting the urge to chase that running brings out in a natural predator. He’s losing. Reaching out, he puts his hand on her shoulder and he’s met with the clamminess of fright. “Why…?” He pauses because the question he’s about to ask is all wrong, so instead he says, “We could be the other kind of friends. I think right about now you could use one.”  
  
There’s the sound of a fawn running through the brush as she just keeps shutting him out. “Thanks. But right now I really just want to be alone. Oh but you’re being really nice and I appreciate it and all.” If that last is meant to take away the sting of rejection – and other emotions he can’t name and doesn’t want to – well, it isn’t working.   
  
He tries yet again. Yes, he’s that desperate and he has no intention of allowing the introspection which would tell him why. “You can talk to me.”   
  
Those eyes of hers, they’re looking everywhere but at him and the fear beneath her skin has transformed and is almost glowing with heat. ““I need to be alone.” Her voice is quavering as she adds a plaintive, “Please?”  
  
Putting his hand under her chin, restraining himself into gentleness, he forces her to meet his gaze. His eyes hold hers in their grip but no, that last thought he had wasn’t a wish for Drusilla’s gift of thrall. He would never wish for that. Nevertheless, he concedes the battle. “I’ll go.”  
  
Her response is a thank you and a distressing sigh of relief as he breaks contact, so he turns and leaves before he can react. All kinds of thoughts swirl through his brain – like the fact that she so freely gives to Xander what she refuses to give to him. Friendship, that’s what he means, naturally. He’s not thinking of those stolen kisses. He isn’t. Because that side of Willow’s life… it’s not, as she said, that it’s none of his business, it’s merely that he isn’t jealous.  
  
Because as much as he wants to be her friend – and he will be, he hasn’t given up on that at all – he loves Buffy even more, so much that no other woman could ever so much as catch his eye.   
  
Now that he’s got that straight, he makes his way back to the mansion. There’s no sense in worrying about how much securing Willow’s friendship has meant to him since he returned from Hell, none at all. She gave him back his soul; he owes her. It’s only natural for him to want to repay such an extraordinary debt. Given her current predicament, she’ll realize soon enough that his friendship is something both necessary and desirable and they’ll be what they should be.   
  
Then his mind will be quiet and everything will be fine. Just fine.  
  
  
  
  
  
The End.


	5. A Little Knowledge

A Little Knowledge  
  
  
  
Oz turned her down.   
  
As in said no to making love to her.  
  
Okay, Willow gets his reasons, and they’re good ones, they are, it’s just… she’s hurt and she’s worried and even though he says everything is all right between them – better than all right, even – the fact that he doesn’t want to have sex with her isn’t exactly the stuff that teenage dreams or healthy senses of self-esteem are made of.  
  
But he spent the night, so that has to mean something, right? Right? Because he slept in her room and they watched the snow fall and they went out into the yard and threw snowballs at each other and kissed and everything. It was a romantic scene straight out of an old movie.  
  
Complete with fadeouts.   
  
She gets that it seems pretty crass of her, but you know what? Just because she’s a lot more intelligent than most people her age doesn’t mean she _isn’t_ her age, and she has the hormones to prove it. Plus, she loves Oz. She really does. Is it so terrible that she’d like to make love with him? To find out what all the fuss is about? Because the way Buffy described…  
  
Yeah, but that went really badly right after, didn’t it? Buffy described that, too. Of course, that was more partner-specific than applicable to sex in general, but still… Maybe Oz has a point about waiting and caution and…  
  
No, she doesn’t agree with that. What kind of musician is he, anyway? Aren’t they supposed to be wild, untamed free spirits, all hedonistic and abandoned and stuff?   
  
It’s her. It has to be her. So that means the truth is that maybe Oz loves her, but he doesn’t _want_ her, not in a lusty, sexy way.   
  
She looks in the mirror and her spirits plummet, because she sees his point. She’s no Buffy, or Cordelia, or Faith. She’s just this pale, awkward, gawky girl with small boobs and red hair and lips that aren’t all pouty. Why _would_ Oz want her in a lusty way? Heck, now that she thinks about it, Xander didn’t either. Sure, he _kissed_ her, but he never tried to go any further.  
  
It’s definitely her.  
  
Now her distress is becoming deeper than just frustration and wounded vanity, because she’s starting to wonder about herself in general. Is it more than just her appearance? Is Oz’s rejection about more than just sex? Did he get back together with her because he wants someone around who compliments his music and isn’t demanding, but who he can ditch easily when something better comes along?  
  
Staring at herself in the mirror isn’t helping, and neither is looking around at a room that seems to be a shrine to her total social awkwardness. Maybe some fresh air would clear her head and cheer her up, or at least stop her from becoming mopier. Okay, yes, it’s nighttime, but she has a purse always stocked with a stake, a cross, and holy water, plus a pretty decent working knowledge of where the demonic hotspots are and how to avoid them, so she can be trusted to take a short stroll on her own.  
  
So that’s what she’s gonna do. Grabbing that aforementioned purse and a jacket and trying not to think about the fact that it doesn’t in any way match the clothes she’s wearing – since when does she notice that stuff… and isn’t that part of the problem? – she heads downstairs.   
  
It’s dark outside, darker than she expected, but she’s not going to let that stop her. She really needs to get out of her house.  
  
The street is quiet and nobody else seems to be out, but that’s no big surprise since this is a residential neighborhood and even though everyone seems to believe the party line about drug gangs and barbecue forks, most people stay in – the rest are teens who are probably at the Bronze. Plus, it’s a weeknight. It’s probably totally normal, people staying home on a weeknight, and Sunnydale might be just like everywhere else – at least in that respect. Wonder if she’ll ever find out. Or will she always live here?  
  
She walks slowly, not having a destination in mind, well aware that she has nowhere to go. Buffy’s off with Angel, she guesses, and Xander… well, she doesn’t really know where Xander is. Their friendship has been suffering since the whole ‘inappropriate kissing’ thing. She misses it so much – was missing it even before, when the stupid stolen kisses got in the way – and if she’d only known how much it would hurt to lose she would never, ever, ever have let that stupid fluke thing happen at all. How come she couldn’t have foreseen this? Some witch she is. It’s amazing she can even float a pencil.   
  
Or maybe she’s not so completely lame, because she can sense… Reaching into her purse, she pulls out her cross, whips around and…  
  
It’s Angel, covering his eyes. Oops. Or maybe not. She still sort of has the creeps about that visit he paid her. Plus, isn’t he supposed to be with Buffy tonight? Speaking of which, this isn’t anywhere near Buffy’s house. “What are you doing here?” she asks as she slowly puts her cross away.  
  
He doesn’t answer. Instead he asks her, “Where are you going? You shouldn’t be out by yourself this late.” The way he says it… she’s annoyed with him again. Is he still trying to be her friend? Because doing the ‘overprotective parent’ thing is the wrong way to go about it. She has parents already, very inattentive ones, and she’s grown used to their parenting style; anyway, for those rare occasions when she feels the need of parental interest, she has Joyce, who also doesn’t do the ‘overprotective’ thing.   
  
“I have a cross, as you probably know, and I also have holy water and a stake. I can handle a short stroll around my own ‘not-very-popular-with-demons’ neighborhood,” she snaps.  
  
Angel seems to back down in the face of her attitude, at least that’s what the slight shift in his expression looks like, and so of course she feels guilty. It’s probably nice of him to be concerned, now that she thinks about it. Most people would appreciate someone caring if they live or die, so maybe she should… “I’m sorry,” she offers with a shamefaced expression.  
  
“It’s okay,” he says mildly, and with a slight smile. That should put her at ease, but it doesn’t. Maybe deep inside she’s still kinda mad about the fish… and Ms. Calendar. She doesn’t know, but then she wouldn’t if it was subconscious, would she? Her parents’ books have told her that much.  
  
“Buffy told me you guys had a date tonight,” she says, and while that’s not exactly what Buffy said, it’s close enough not to be a lie. More importantly, it’s a new way of asking the question he has yet to answer: what is he doing here?  
  
His expression shifts again – no, not darkens, can’t be that. “We patrolled. But there wasn’t anything big out there.”  
  
“Oh,” she says, shifting her own expression to cheerful, trying to be pleasant, realizing that she hopes that will bring this encounter to an end sooner rather than later. It’s not like her perky manner hasn’t driven him away before. “That’s good, right? No evil bad guys?”  
  
Angel shrugs, seeming to be unsure of that’s a good thing or not. Sure. Because that’s one of the hard questions – whether or not to be happy that no one was disemboweled by a Ragnash demon tonight. You know, this more than anything might be why they’re not friends. Because she’s always been a ‘glass half full’ kind of girl, but him? Not only does he see the glass as half-empty, but it’s got holy water in it and a crack in the rim and it left a ring on his mahogany table and… he’s just so dour. And yeah, okay – judgmental much? But then again… Yes, he just got back from Hell, so she should maybe cut him some slack but… he was saved from there! And snow! Snow happened right as he was about to kill himself. Buffy told her all about it – which sort of took the bloom off the rose of playing with Oz in the twirling flakes since… but she doesn’t need to think about that now. The point is that a lot of good things have been happening to him lately. So shouldn’t he feel… liberated and reprieved and really pretty optimistic? Her boyfriend just refused to have sex with her, but she still tries to look…  
  
All right, so she’s Henrietta Hypocrite because yes, she’s in a dismal mood tonight, but at least she’s not inflicting it on him. “I should probably go home,” she says.  
  
To her surprise, he takes hold of her arm and says, “Don’t go.” He doesn’t say ‘please’ but it’s somehow there in the tone of his voice.  
  
She should be flattered that he wants her company and glad of a distraction from the misery that drove her from her home; she isn’t, though, and she feels guilty again. It’s just occurred to her that, hey, she gave the guy back his soul and they probably _should_ be actual friends and not just people who fight evil together. Unfortunately, she just can’t make herself want that.   
  
Still, guilt is a very powerful force, so against her own wishes, she hears herself say, “Okay,” and now she’s stuck, isn’t she?   
  
That expression she sees on his face is sort of like a smile and she supposes she should feel glad that she’s cheered him up, and maybe she sort of does, but still… The fact is that for reasons she may or may not ever understand, Angel gives her a wiggins and she’s not sure how she feels about him.   
  
You know, maybe Angel hasn’t cornered the market on existential angst after all. Ugh. This is so not what she needs tonight. It’s seems like she’d have been better off staying home. “So,” she says, since Angel hasn’t said anything and she’s starting to feel fidgety, “What was it like? You know, getting to walk around in the daytime and all?”  
  
She’s trying to stick to an upbeat topic, but leave it to Angel to react in an unexpected way – well, maybe not unexpected for him. He frowns and looks away. “It wasn’t really daylight,” he offers, and again – glass half empty much?  
  
“Well no, but… it was daytime. And there was snow!” She warms to the topic, her competitive fire kindled, determined to cheer him up whether he likes it or not. “I mean, I know snow probably isn’t a new thing for you, but it’s the first time I ever saw it.”  
  
Wonder of wonders, Angel is sort of smiling. But he’s staring at her too, which makes her really uncomfortable. Has anyone ever told him that intense gazes are really unnerving? “You never saw snow?”  
  
Is he making fun of her? “I live in Sunnydale,” she all but snaps, feeling defensive.  
  
“I’m sorry. I guess I just sort of assumed, your family being… but your parents never took you skiing or anything?”  
  
She’s startled for a moment and then that wiggins kicks into high gear because she realizes that he’s made assumptions about her based on her parents and their high-powered careers in a way no one else has, not even Cordelia Chase. She never realized he knew any of that stuff… or thought about it. “My parents don’t take me on trips with them.” She tries to sound utterly unaffected, but probably fails.   
  
“I… did you like the snow?” he asks awkwardly.   
  
“It was beautiful.” And it was. It really was. Stripped out of its context as part of the Buffy and Angel Show, it was kind of magical in a totally different way. Getting lost in the memory, she gushes, “Oz and I went outside and had a snowball fight and…”  
  
“Oz was there?” Angel’s tight, disapproving voice immediately ends the rapture of her recall. He’s glowering at her.  
  
She all but stutters as she replies, “Yeah.”  
  
“Oz was at your house that early in the morning?”  
  
“Yeah. He spent the night, but…”  
  
“He spent the night at your house? Alone with you?” Is he growling? Oh god. Angel’s growling.  
  
“Nothing happened,” she replies meekly, cowed by his stern and angry manner. But then it occurs to her once again that he isn’t her father. Who the heck does he think he is? She stands straight, squares her shoulders, breaks out her Resolve Face, and lets go. “Anyway, it’s none of your business. Buffy spends the night at _your_ house. She told me. So what if my boyfriend spends the night at mine?” Her voice is high and angry and now her stance is hipshot, arms akimbo. She’s sort of impressed with herself.  
  
Too bad it doesn’t last. His expression softens and he gets that concerned look that makes her feel guilty and, oh gosh, his hand is on her arm again. “I’m just concerned about you. I don’t want to see you get hurt.”  
  
“I won’t be.”  
  
“I just… after what happened between the two of you… are you sure he’s not pressuring you?”   
  
Huh? It takes her a second to process that and the whole reason she’s out on this walk to begin with comes flooding back and it’s not making her feel very good. But it does remind her to defend Oz, because… “He’s totally not like that. He didn’t try anything, just the oppo…” Oh no! She came way too close to oversharing and by the look she can see on Angel’s face, she thinks that by ‘way too close’ she actually means ‘all the way there.’ Great. This night has just gone from bad to humiliating, except…  
  
Making the mistake of looking into Angel’s eyes… she shivers. The pity or shock she expected, that would have been normal? Neither of those things are what she finds. Is she being melodramatic and seeing stuff that isn’t there? Yeah, she has to be. Because there’s no way that there are glints of gold or hints of something that he so doesn’t feel about her. But it doesn’t matter. Right now, she no longer fears being rude. “I have to go home, okay? I forgot. I have a paper that’s due tomorrow… and it’s really important and… bye!” So she turns and actually starts racing – nearly running – back to her house. Maybe he follows; she isn’t sure. But she gets there without seeing him and she bounds through her front door and she locks it and she hurries upstairs and closes not just the curtains over her French doors, but the drapes as well.  
  
It feels dark and close and small in here now – but safe. And safe is good.   
  
Safe is very, very good.  
  
  
The End.


	6. A Dangerous Thing

A Dangerous Thing  
  
  
  
He’s taken his first walk during the day in centuries, side by side with the only girl he has ever loved. She has poured her heart out to him; lain herself open, vulnerable and fragile, for him to destroy or cosset as he sees fit; has held his hand as they walked through a white, quiet town as if the world existed for them alone. This should have been everything he needed to be whole again.  
  
So why is that he almost wishes the snow had never come, that the sun had blazed and the dust had claimed him and he’d returned to the fires of Hell through doors that even now he is sure still stand open for him – yawning wide with want?  
  
There on Kingman’s Bluff, he’d told Buffy the truth – but he hadn’t told all of it. He doesn’t want to think about all of it. His mind stays focused on the words about why he was brought back and about the danger he could be to Buffy because, though they are painful, they are painful in a way that’s familiar and that fits in with who he knows himself to be, the creature he sees in a mirror made of something unlike any glass.  
  
But it wasn’t just Buffy who figured in Jenny Calendar’s sibilant whispers, now was it? No, try as he might, he can’t block out what else he heard… about what he could do once Buffy was drained and cold and the town was defenseless.   
  
He can’t block out what Jenny Calendar said about Willow.  
  
Still, he can rationalize it. Bless Buffy for that, with her logic and her reasons and her excuses. He can will himself to believe that none of it is true, merely the insidious machinations of an evil older than time trying to bend him to its will. After all, who would know better than Buffy, who was born to do battle with evil in all its forms?  
  
Yes, he’ll just keep telling himself that, even as deep down he knows that while Buffy _fights_ evil, she doesn’t understand it one bit. She didn’t even pay attention when he told her that it was the man in him who was the weakness they needed to fear, so wedded is she to the idea that souls are some magical talisman against the darkness. Especially _his_ soul.  
  
Can he blame her, however? After all, he’s told the same lie to himself numberless times. Yet he has to admit to being annoyed with her, even though it’s not the least bit fair of him. It seems to be a pattern though, this expecting too much of a woman who is, when you strip away the Slayer, a teenage girl.  
  
Just a teenage girl.  
  
Introspection and analysis are becoming ever more depressing as they threaten to unravel every thread holding together the world as he knows it. Even now he can feel all the warm, dark lies being too harshly lighted to ever shield him again. Contrary to what he’d believed a few scant moments ago, the rationalizations won’t work anymore.   
  
But did you really believe they would, boyo? Comfort is not for the likes o’ you.  
  
Then again, this isn’t exactly a homey, comforting place, now is it? Has he ever noticed before how gloomy his house is? It’s oppressive – dark, dank, cold – and it’s also enough of a vampiric cliché to make his mind turn back to that night at the Sunset Club when… He felt the fool that night.  
  
Maybe he had been one, only he’d been a bigger one the night before.  
  
If only tonight’s patrol… but no, there were no demons to fight, only his love’s hand in his as she acted as if that blanket of snow remained, as if it had made everything clean and white and new… as if it hadn’t just been temporary camouflage for the filth and grime of a world waiting only for a blaze of heat to bring it back to sordid life.  
  
Staring into to the fire eternally lit in his hearth isn’t helping. He needs to get out of here.   
  
A moment later, he realizes, he’s done just that, all but fleeing the ruins Angelus had grandiosely declared a mansion. So now, here he is, on the streets of a town that shows no evidence of having only recently been a winter wonderland.  
  
He sees a dismal metaphor in that – no matter how much good you do, how hard you try, in the end all your best efforts are ephemeral and the world remains what it was before you started: a grim and terrible place. You’re nothing but a brief fall of snow kissing ground, fortunate to be even a memory come the next morning.  
  
On the surface, all is quiet, but Angel knows there’s no such thing, not really. There is a whole world beneath the surface and evil remains – noisy with hunger. He keeps walking, not sure where he’s going, mind more on where he’s been than where he’s going.  
  
With a start, he realizes that he’s somehow wandered to Willow’s neighborhood – and she’s out here on her own. Hapless prey.  
  
Or perhaps not, because with a quick movement of one hand to her purse, she whirls around and he covers his eyes. She’s got a cross.   
  
It seems to take her a moment to realize it’s him and for the adrenaline he can scent to abate enough for her to act rationally. Then she puts the cross away. Slowly though and he’s not happy about that. “What are you doing here?”   
  
That’s a fair question, but there’s a better one, because there are so many dangers against which her cross is no proof at all. “Where are you going? You shouldn’t be out by yourself this late.”   
  
Her expression immediately shrivels in irritation. She’s a kitten who thinks she’s a lion and she rails against those who know better than she does. “I have a cross, as you probably know, and I also have holy water and a stake. I can handle a short stroll around my own ‘not-very-popular-with-demons’ neighborhood.” He says nothing, though there is, after all, one demon who seems to visit this neighborhood fairly regularly of late. Funny that he doesn’t think of Oz, but then again, werewolves are part-timers, aren’t they? Nothing like the real thing.  
  
Nothing like him.  
  
He scrambles to rationalize that last thought and the explanation that, of course, all he means is that they are very different creatures, and anyway, what he wants from Willow is friendship seems to work.  
  
It’s the truth.  
  
But if he’s going to convince her to give him that gift, he can’t keep antagonizing her and he assumes a shamefaced posture to ameliorate the damage done by his well-meant but ill-delivered questions.   
  
If there’s more than a hint of his demon’s subtlety in his actions, he ignores it. Even when she responds with a sincerely apologetic, “Sorry.”  
  
He smiles kindly. “It’s okay.” This is where they should be.  
  
“Buffy told me you guys had a date tonight,” she says and he wonders if she’s trying to get rid of him or if perhaps this is the kind of friendly banter that signals the shift in their relationship he’s been seeking. He tries to see it as the latter.  
  
“We patrolled. But there wasn’t anything big out there.” No, everything monstrous waits for him when he’s alone. The death of the Bringers hasn’t brought great relief. Only Buffy could believe that it would. Is that fair of him to feel that way? Probably not, but he does, particularly since he realizes that he’s irked that she characterizes his patrolling with her as a date. As if he only engages in this endless fight against evil for the chance to get his hands on her breasts.  
  
Is Liam the man she sees when she looks at him? Worse, is Liam the man she loves?  
  
“Oh.” Then Willow’s expression shifts to a cheerfulness he knows is patently false. Does she think he knows her so little? Probably. But he lets her continue. “That’s good, right? No evil bad guys?”  
  
Her naïveté makes him ache. Somehow it’s neither annoying nor pitiable, though it probably should be. Instead, it calls to that part of him which earlier had lamented the futility of the battle in which he’s engaged. Because she’s what he’s trying to protect, isn’t she? Suddenly he remembers the sensation of his soul passing through her and he thinks that maybe she’s the anchor that tied him here – that brought him back to this harbour.  
  
Was the First lying about _everything_?  
  
He’s no true angel, but there’s still the sensation of spread wings and a sense of safety, truer than he’d imagined he could feel again.  
  
Just as he experiences this epiphany, his wings threaten to melt away. His introspection seems to have cost him his advantage; Willow’s voice breaks through his thoughts. “I should probably go home.”  
  
No! Not now, not when this connection he’s felt with her since he came back from Hell is about to become something comprehensible and comforting and controllable. Reaching out, he takes her arm. “Don’t go,” he all but begs, and he can’t believe he’s just rolled over as if he’s that cur of hers, belly pink and white, defenses down.  
  
Maybe it wasn’t weakness so much as cunning, however, because he can see her buckle under the weight of his entreaty. “Okay.”  
  
As he feels a soft, human smile form, he knows exactly what he is. He should hate himself, and maybe he will later, but right now he feels too close to that sense of order in his world he’s been craving like blood to care about the irony of using the very humanity she restored to him as a tool like the demon he is.  
  
Possibly that’s because it’s working. She’s still there.   
  
But of course the topic she brings up for discussion has to be one fraught with angst – and connected to Buffy. “So. What was it like? You know, getting to walk around in the daytime and all?”  
  
Before he can think better of it, he frowns and responds with a curt, “It wasn’t really daylight.” Great. Just when he was getting it right.  
  
But she doesn’t leave. Instead, she seems determined to try and alter his perception of the day. It’s… touching. “Well no, but… it was daytime. And there was snow! I mean, I know snow probably isn’t a new thing for you, but it’s the first time I ever saw it.”  
  
That last revelation catches him off guard. First because he thinks it’s the first absolutely personal revelation she’s ever made to him but second because it doesn’t make sense. “You never saw snow?”  
  
Again, he’s blundered and hurt her feelings. He can almost see the walls go up and the tentative bond disintegrating. “I live in Sunnydale.”   
  
Time to try and rescue this. After all, she has to admit that it’s a bit unusual for a young woman like her, who comes from a family of professionals and of no negligible means, not to have traveled. “I’m sorry. I guess I just sort of assumed, your family being… but your parents never took you skiing or anything?”  
  
A short pause, and then she says, “My parents don’t take me on trips with them.”  
  
He should have kept his damn mouth shut because it’s obvious he’s hurt her feelings. She looks stricken and a few seconds thought makes him understand why. Of course it pains her to have someone baldly and tactlessly force her to openly acknowledge her family’s neglect. How can they live the way they do, all but completely abandoning her, never sharing their world with her? Willow deserves better than that.  
  
It makes him all the more determined to be her friend; he tries to get the conversation back onto comfortable ground. “I… did you like the snow?”  
  
“It was beautiful.” As she says it… the snow may have been beautiful, but nowhere near as lovely as her face right now. She’s lost in the memory and the look of joyful, innocent reverie which has taken over her features makes him itch for a pencil and paper with which to capture it forever. He can picture her in a pair of her girlish pajamas, standing outside in the snowy dawn, face upturned as flakes fall onto her cheeks, melting against the heat of her wonder and appreciation. It’s as if he’s right there with her. Somehow the snow seems so much more magical now.  
  
Her next words shatter the dream. “Oz and I went outside and had a snowball fight and…”  
  
It’s as if she’s thrown their connection back in his face. For a moment it had as if that snowfall had been theirs, but now… he doesn’t think about the fact that what he’s feeling is… no, that’s not it. He’s not thinking about this. He’s her friend. He has a right to be concerned. “Oz was there?”   
  
His concern seems to have been expressed with a bit more vehemence than he realized. She nearly stutters out her one word reply. “Yeah.”  
  
“Oz was at your house that early in the morning?”  
  
“Yeah. He spent the night, but…”  
  
“He spent the night at your house? Alone with you?” It’s all he can do to keep his true face from emerging. Only the fact that his senses tell him she’s as pure as ever calms the tempest roiling within him. What was she thinking? That cur… he’s a wolf _and_ a teenage boy. She has no idea what could have happened to her. How naïve can she be?  
  
“Nothing happened,” she responds and it seems his manner has had a suitably chastening effect. But he’s reckoned without her reckless spirit because she suddenly changes course completely and rounds on him. Here again is the kitten who sees a lion in her looking glass. “Anyway, it’s none of your business. Buffy spends the night at your house. She told me. So what if my boyfriend spends the night at mine?”   
  
He wants to grab her and shake her and remind her that there are vast differences between a cursed vampire and an unfettered mongrel… between a man and a boy. But his demon’s cunning asserts itself. She’s not the only one who’s manner whiplashes into something new. But unlike her, his transforms with intent. He reaches out once more and ever so gently puts his hand on her arm. “I’m just concerned about you,” he says with kindly concern, “I don’t want to see you get hurt.”  
  
Her expression softens slightly, but her voice is still firm and obdurate. “I won’t be.”  
  
Continuing in the same solicitous vein, his words are spoken haltingly. “I just… after what happened between the two of you… are you sure he’s not pressuring you?”  
  
What did he say? Because there’s a flash of something like hurt and humiliation in her eyes before she masks it with the practiced skill of someone well used to concealing the effects of slights and insults. He knows her past, remembers the things Buffy told him back when he’s ashamed to admit he wasn’t even paying conscious attention, and he knows this has to be a deep wound for her to let him see the blood for even a second.   
  
So deep is that wound, in fact, that her tongue stumbles into betrayal. “He’s totally not like that. He didn’t try anything, just the oppo…” She stops, but not before she’s told him everything… and he’s reeling.  
  
She tried to seduce that boy. Tried… and failed.  
  
He’s so undone by this revelation that when she stammers out a panicked “I have to go home, okay? I forgot. I have a paper that’s due tomorrow… and it’s really important and… bye,” he lets her go without a fight. It takes a moment for him to think clearly enough to follow her home to ensure her safe arrival.  
  
But he does and he watches as she makes a panicked rush through her front door.  
  
What he’s learned tonight… On his walk home, however, he’s able to sort it out and understand, putting her actions into context beside her ultimately chaste dalliance with Xander Harris.  
  
She’s lost and trying to find her place as a woman in a world full of forthright girls like Cordelia Chase… and Buffy. She’s not them, though, and she shouldn’t try to be. No, she’s something rare and precious and she needs to be protected – from herself.  
  
So that’s what he’ll do.  
  
Because he’s her friend.  
  
He spends far too long staring into his hearth as dawn approaches, trying to drown out the mocking laughter that sounds so much like Jenny Calendar… and avoiding sleep. But it comes. When he awakens, he’ll tell himself that dreams mean nothing.  
  
Nothing at all.  
  
  
  
The End.


	7. Cracked Out of Turn

Cracked Out of Turn  
  
  
  
Her mother had wanted to burn her at the stake.  
  
For all that she mirrors Buffy’s ‘water under the bridge’ attitude, the truth is, Willow is still obsessing about being tied up on a pyre and nearly set on fire. Is Buffy’s cheerful dismissal of it all as just another wacky instance of life on the Hellmouth a façade too?  
  
Probably not, huh? Because now that it’s all over, Joyce loves her daughter again. She does. It’s real and sincere and something Buffy can believe in. Because Joyce is Joyce.  
  
She’s not Sheila.  
  
That’s not something Willow will ever talk about. Like Xander, she passes off her crappy home life as a big joke, no big deal. It doesn’t hurt that her parents don’t care anything about her life, that they take off for months at a time and never even call while they’re gone, that they don’t remember her birthday, that two days after her mother tried to kill her and even after she made noise about demanding to meet Oz, Sheila is gone again on another lecture tour and won’t be back until… September? That no matter how good her grades are and how hard she tries to be perfect, they have never once said they love her. Because hey, at least they always make sure the bills are paid and that she has enough money for food. That makes it all okay, right?  
  
The same way that it’s okay that Xander’s parents are always drunk and screaming at him because – hey! – at least they don’t hit him.  
  
Willow has never pried beneath the surface of Xander’s characterization of his home life and he’s never pried beneath the surface of hers, but they know each other’s secrets. Someday, she thinks… or maybe never, because no, she isn’t going to risk breaking something fragile that might still protect him. His parents, after all, were not part of the mob.  
  
He wasn’t bound to a stake with flames licking at his feet.  
  
She thinks that maybe once, long ago, she heard Xander’s Mom say she loved him.  
  
It might have been a good idea to go to Oz’s Dingoes rehearsal, but she had thought she was going to need to spend ‘quality time’ with her Mom tonight and she’s not ready to talk about coming home to find a terse note and the usual credit cards on the kitchen table instead, not even with the boy she loves, so here she is – alone in her bedroom. Well, there’s Amy, but she’s not much company, though at least she seems to be enjoying her new Habitrail. No, Willow’s not taking another walk. Granted, the odds of her running into Angel again are slim, but she isn’t all that eager to talk to him after basically telling him the whole humiliating truth about her failed seduction of Oz.  
  
Why wasn’t he there the other night, she wonders, helping to save Buffy? Has she even thought about that before now? Probably not, huh. Still, shouldn’t he have been there?   
  
Great. _Now_ she kinda wants to talk to him, if only because the chance to be angry on someone else’s behalf – namely Buffy – is sort of seductive. Scratch the ‘sort of’ and substitute a ‘very, very’ for strict accuracy.   
  
Maybe she shouldn’t have had that thought because as she turns her head, she sees that Angel’s right outside her French doors. What is he doing here? Guess there’s only one way to find out, so she gets up off the floor where she’s been sitting and watching Amy explore her new home and goes to let him in so she can yell at him. Which she does immediately. “How come you weren’t there to help Buffy the other night?”   
  
Angel seems nonplussed, since she didn’t even say hello or anything, but Willow doesn’t care, because he deserves to be chewed out. Buffy’s her best friend.   
  
She’s not going to think about the fact that a lot of what she’s feeling has more to do with her own Angel issues than with any high dudgeon over his failure to aid Buffy in escaping the recent auto da fé.   
  
He wasn’t there to help _her_ either.  
  
Not that she expected or even wanted him to be, except that, you know, she did give him back his soul.  
  
Why hasn’t he said anything? Why is he just standing there, staring at her? The ‘polite girl’ side of her kicks in and she belatedly says, “Come in,” because maybe he just doesn’t want to have this discussion within earshot of her neighbors.  
  
Unlike the previous times he’s been here, there’s no hesitation before he walks through her doors.  
  
There probably wasn’t when he broke in and killed her fish either.  
  
Once he closes the door behind him – and no, she doesn’t feel uneasy about that – she asks him again, “Why weren’t you there to help save Buffy?”  
  
He’s still just staring and she’s more than a little freaked out, but then he finally says, “I don’t know,” which she guesses is kind of an explanation except... he’s lying and she knows it. Don’t ask her _how_ she knows it, she just does. Maybe Angel has a tell – she saw that once in this movie about con men and a famous psychologist. Her Mom hated it, so Willow dutifully adopted her point of view and only saw it once, but it’s stuck with her all the same.  
  
 _You want somebody to come along, somebody to possess you, to take you into a new thing._  
  
Why is she remembering that line, that scene, now?  
  
She shakes it off with a physical gesture that she’s sure has Angel wondering just how big a dork she can actually be, but who cares? Not like she cares what he thinks.  
  
Or maybe she does… and she’s glad to have him think she’s a geek.  
  
Since he said something, she’s supposed to say something back, so she wracks her brain for the correct best-friend-reply to his lame excuse and says, “You knew about what was going on with MOO, that Buffy’s Mom was in charge, right?”  
  
He nods and has at least the small amount of decency to look slightly abashed.   
  
“So, what? You just decided this was one that Buffy could handle on her own?” He’s back to being all Taciturn Guy and it gets her worked up – so much so that she ends up saying things way differently than she meant to. “We were tied to stakes! They lit the pyre… I was almost burned to death!” No. Please tell her she hasn’t said that. This is supposed to be about Buffy. Especially since it isn’t like she had even expected Angel to show up to save _her_. No, it’s just that she’s still really overwrought and what with her Mom taking off again and not even knowing what city her Dad is in…  
  
But Angel thinks it’s all about him and Willow is getting really sick of the way she always seems to bungle everything with him lately. He’s got that Understanding Guy look on his face and she just wants him to leave. Yeah. Like that’s gonna happen. Angel turns those big brown eyes on her and says, “I’m sorry. I should have been there.”  
  
“Buffy could have used…”  
  
He interrupts her, “You needed me there.”  
  
No, she really hadn’t. She’d had Giles and Cordelia and hey, Oz and Xander had shown up too… eventually. But Buffy… “Buffy loves you,” she says, ignoring his remark. “I bet it hurt that you didn’t try to save her.”  
  
It’s as if she slapped him because he starts; eyes wide for the briefest of perceptible moments. She doesn’t want to think about the pleasure she derives from this. “She didn’t need me,” he responds as his eyes narrow.   
  
A moment passes and Willow realizes he means something different than needing his help to save the day and she can’t help but shudder in apprehension. What will he say next? She doesn’t have to wait long to find out. “Were your parents there?”  
  
Can she slap him? Please? Because if she doesn’t want to talk about this with Oz or Buffy or Xander, she sure as heck does not want to talk about this with Angel, but somehow, instead of lying, which is what she fully intended to do when she opened her mouth, she says softly, “My mother.”  
  
The look of sympathy on his face… It’s exactly what she doesn’t want… or maybe it’s what she wants too much. Either way, she does her best to make it go away. “It’s okay. Really. She doesn’t even remember it now.”  
  
“But you do.”  
  
Okay, could he please get with the program? Why can’t he be the way he was before? You know – completely ignorant of the fact that she exists except when he needs her help in something to do with Buffy. Again, she fully intends to lie, but finds herself admitting, “Yeah.” Luckily, there’s a way to get things back on the Buffy track. “Buffy’s Mom helped light the pyres.”  
  
Angel shakes his head. “I saw Joyce tonight. She baked cookies for Buffy this afternoon.”  
  
“Oh.” That’s a nice, serviceable monosyllable, right? Yes it is and it’s for sure a heck of a lot better than the ‘it’s not fair’ which is reverberating and echoing and screaming in her head. Because if Willow wants cookies, she’ll have to walk to the store and buy some.   
  
It’s not that she hates Buffy, or even that she’s jealous, not really. Because Buffy saves the world on a nightly basis and she absolutely deserves a Mom who loves her, but… Doesn’t Willow deserve one too? Or a father? Willow’s not greedy, so it doesn’t have to be both, but if one of them, just one of them…  
  
She has no idea how it happened, but suddenly she’s crying and Angel’s arms are around her and she should push him away but she doesn’t. Instead, she stays right where she is and soaks the front of Angel’s sort of fancy silk shirt.  
  
He’s not pushing her away either; he’s holding her close, chin on the top of her head, seemingly not mad or freaked out at all. “It’s okay,” he says, and she guesses that maybe it’s true if he’s talking about his shirt or the unexpected emotional outburst, but if he’s talking about her life… no, so very not.  
  
It takes her a moment to get herself back under control, but once she can finally speak coherently, she pulls back and says, “Thanks,” since that’s definitely called for. “I’ll have your shirt dry-cleaned,” she then adds, because that is also very much what good manners require under the circumstances.  
  
“I can pay for my own dry cleaning.” He chuckles softly, though, and her worries about having offended him with her offer vanish. Good, now she can get back to freaking out because she’s just shared with Angel something she hasn’t shared with people to whom she’s a whole lot closer. Of course, then he manages to distract her by jabbing at the raw wound he’s uncovered. “Your mother’s gone, isn’t she?”  
  
Willow can’t help it; she bursts into tears all over again, barely managing to choke out, “She left today.”  
  
A second later, she’s being held close once more. Twice in one day – does that make this a habit? It doesn’t make much of a difference what it is, because here she remains, crying for all she’s worth, crying as if she’s never cried before… which is sort of true if you’re talking about in front of other people, because she tries very hard not to do that.  
  
He guides her over to the bed and they sit down, which somehow makes this feel a lot more like they’re alone in her room and she’s weirdly uncomfortable – which is more normal than what’s been going on for the past few minutes, so maybe it’s better.   
  
Or maybe it just doesn’t matter because he’s beside her with his arm around her and she’s still crying, though less violently. “Oz was supposed to come for dinner next week.”   
  
She doesn’t know why she told him that and she wishes she hadn’t when she feels him stiffen for a moment, but then again, why is _any_ of this happening? “Your mother likes him?”  
  
Willow shakes her head. “No. She hasn’t met him. She didn’t know about him until two days ago.”  
  
“Your mother didn’t know about Oz?” Angel’s eyes widen in surprise.  
  
You know, it sounds so much worse when someone else says it, so she hastens to shrug it off with a light, unconcerned, “She didn’t notice my haircut either.”  
  
It doesn’t work. “I can’t believe she can be so completely unconcerned. What kind of a mother doesn’t…”  
  
Okay, this is not a discussion she wants to have with him. “She’s always been like that. It’s okay. Really.” Willow smiles, wide and bright, and if _Angel_ is big on noticing, then he’ll notice the big ‘Stop’ sign that’s plastered on her face right now.  
  
But he doesn’t. Or maybe he does and he’s just a traffic scofflaw. “It’s not okay. You deserve much better than that.”  
  
She’d thought the same thing a short while ago, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to admit it. No, she’s going to argue. “It’s not a big deal. Seriously. I like the fact that my parents leave me alone. It beats having to try to explain demon fighting without winding up in an institution. My Mom’s a psychologist.”  
  
That last remark elicits a short bark of mirthless laughter but then his expression turns serious and he’s staring at her intently. She’s unnerved – now _that_ is an official habit when she’s around Angel. His words do nothing to change that either. “You don’t have to pretend with me.” Oh but she does, she really does, except… after crying all over him, should she really be surprised that it’s not working? What she said the last time he was in her room, though, that thing about them not being… _this_ kind of friends, she meant it and she doesn’t have any idea why it’s not staying that way when he didn’t have any problem with it before and, honestly, neither did she.  
  
Her head hurts and she’s overwhelmed and boy does she feel guilty and Angel’s arm is still around her and… “You and Buffy – you’ll make things work.” If that’s not a non sequitur, Willow doesn’t know what one is and even she is having a ’huh?’ moment. Then she feels Angel’s hand against her skin and she thinks maybe thinking is overrated and she doesn’t _want_ to know where the heck it came from.   
  
Angel’s face is way too close and he’s still looking at her and she doesn’t want to meet his eyes.   
  
Just then, there’s a sound and she could weep again – this time for joy. “Oh! The phone!” She leaps up and all but trips and falls onto the nightstand. “I should answer it.” Even Angel can’t argue with that, but she doesn’t give him time to try, grabbing the receiver and picking it up. Maybe the universe is on her side because the voice at the other end of the line couldn’t be more welcome. “Oz, hey! I thought you had rehearsal tonight.” Looks like it ended early and what he says next is a gift. “Yeah, in fact… why don’t you come over. My Mom’s out of town again.” She smiles as he agrees and hangs up.   
  
Now all that’s left to do is… but no, she won’t be saying a polite goodbye to her discomfiting guest, because when she turns back to where he was sitting, Angel is gone.  
  
She should be relieved, so she tells herself she is, even as disquiet and foreboding coil around her bones. She sloughs it off as Hellmouth wackiness and heads for the bathroom to wash her face and brush her teeth. No more tears tonight. Nope. Tonight is all about boyfriend kiss-age and happy thoughts.   
  
Somewhere in the back of her mind, there’s a shelf in a closet and she shoves Angel to the very back of it, behind the sporting equipment she never used anyway, and that’s where he’ll stay. He was just bored because Buffy was hanging out with Faith or something tonight, that’s all. That’s why he was here acting all strange and concerned. Tomorrow? Tomorrow none of this will have happened. Not one bit of it.  
  
And you know? It’s not bad at all that her Mom’s gone all the time. Because really, it’s much more comfy making with the smoochies in here than in the back of Oz’s van.  
  
Now she’s smiling. That’s the spirit, Willow. Now go get ready. Oz will be here soon. Then you won’t think about anything at all for a nice long time.  
  
To be continued…


	8. Confidence Game

Confidence Game

 

It’s getting harder and harder to pretend that he is who he was before.

Buffy was nearly incinerated by a howling mob of townspeople the other night and he wasn’t there – hadn’t made a move to even try to help figure out what could have suddenly made the unfailingly complacent and unconcerned Sunnydale citizenry so horrified by the death of two children no one knew.

He tries to tell himself that it’s because he’s been trying to detach. Buffy depends on him too much and it’s made her weaker, not stronger, as a Slayer. That is true enough and might even be part of the reason for his inertia, but can it really explain everything? As much as he wants it to, no it doesn’t – perhaps because he spent part of this evening with Buffy and the kiss they shared would read in no dictionary as a fond farewell - but his threadbare rationale is all he has because the rest is shrouded in fog, fog he’d characterize as impenetrable were he not just self-aware enough to acknowledge that it’s not so much that he can’t see into its murky depths as that he doesn’t want to.

What he doesn’t ask himself is whether it would have made a difference had he known that Willow would be among those slated for persecution and execution by the brainwashed hordes.

Why hadn’t that occurred to him anyway?

Of course, all ended well. Giles and – of all people – Cordelia Chase saved the day and Buffy somehow staked the demon and no lasting harm was done… save to a witch named Amy who turned herself into a rat just before the rescue. According to Buffy, Willow has taken the little rodent into her home and is trying to find a spell to undo the transformation.

Memories assail him of his years in the filthy alleys of New York, draining a meager and disgusting sustenance from the bodies of those pestilent little creatures. He shudders at the thought of Willow having one near her. Hopefully she at least keeps it in the garage or something, though knowing her soft heart, he somehow doubts it.

But is the rat-witch really the only one still suffering any lingering trauma from the events of that too-recent day? He shrugs the question off, or tries to. Isn’t he being foolish and rather pessimistic in his thinking? Because it’s patently obvious after seeing the way Joyce nearly hovered over Buffy tonight that the transformation wrought by the demon hasn’t lingered. It has to be the same for all the others. Except…

No, he’s wrong. He has to be.

Still, that doesn’t stop him from heading back out into the night on his way to the home of a girl who isn’t his… who isn’t Buffy.

With each step his mind goes back to the kiss in the darkness at the gates of the cemetery before she began her night’s work – begging off patrol being his one concession to his professed goal of detachment. That embrace was as passionate as any kiss they’ve ever shared, perhaps more, and it has left him with a lingering burden of unsatisfied lust and longing which even now makes his body ache and yet… it was hollow even when she was in his arms and the memory of it rings like brass within him. All noise and no music.

He’s wrong, of course. This is confusion and guilt and the echoing whispers of the evil wrapped in the skin of a gypsy martyr turning truth into chaos.

Here he is – Willow’s house – and he is poised at the French doors to her bedroom. Just as he’s about to knock, however, the doors are flung open and she greets him with an angry, “How come you weren’t there to help Buffy the other night?”

The fact that he’s been asking himself that same question doesn’t make it any less disconcerting to have it flung at him full force by Willow, so he stands mute, not entirely sure what to do and completely bereft of a reply. So he waits and he wonders and he realizes that he’d be almost glad if she were angry at him for not being there for her.

He wants to matter to her. Still. Because they should be friends.

Yes, that’s all it’s about, but it’s important, so it makes sense that he’s obsess… no, not obsessed, but committed, yes, that’s it, committed to making it happen. Just as it makes sense that he’s glad his senses tell him that she hasn’t given herself to that wolf of hers, because as a friend, even one she has yet to acknowledge, he is naturally concerned about her rushing into a physical relationship with someone unworthy. Does she regret her recent folly?

Tonight is not the time to ask her about such things.

He is still standing outside as she stares at him, her expression both intent and oddly distracted. He’s curious as to what she’s thinking, but there are few subjects about which a gentleman asks a lady when he’s standing outside within earshot of her neighbors. It would be easy enough for him to enter her room so they could have this discussion indoors, but if he’s going to win her over, good manners are key, so he waits and she finally says, “Come in.”

The moment he closes the door behind him, she lights into him again. “Why weren’t you there to help save Buffy?”

There’s no getting out of this, is there? He tells her the same thing he’s been telling himself, which he’s reasonably sure translates into honesty. “I don’t know,”

It’s immediately obvious that she doesn’t believe him; he can see the wheels turning behind those eyes of hers. Is that the reason she shakes herself a moment later, as if rousing herself from thought? It must be, because she turns the tables on him with naïve skill. “You knew about what was going on with MOO, that Buffy’s Mom was in charge, right?”

Her point is well-taken and he nods his concession, apprehensive as he does.

His fear is as apt as her observation because she’s not finished. “So, what? You just decided this was one that Buffy could handle on her own?” He says nothing. What can he say? Nothing that won’t sound callous. She’s clearly not pleased by his silence and her voice rises with emotion, as does the colour in her cheeks. “We were tied to stakes! They lit the pyre… I was almost burned to death!”

Those last words both chill and paradoxically please him. He does matter to her after all because she’s just admitted as much. Well, perhaps not in so many words, but… “I’m sorry. I should have been there.” His stare is now as intent as ever hers was and he hopes she can see his sincerity.

Clearly she can, and she seems almost frightened, her eyes dropping away from his as she counters with, “Buffy could have used…”

Shaking his head, he interrupts her. “You needed me there.”

Again she ducks the real subject. “Buffy loves you. I bet it hurt that you didn’t try to save her.” Does she understand what happens when you run from a natural predator? No matter how fast the gazelle flees, sooner or later, the leopard always brings it down.

There’s so much Willow doesn’t understand about passion, passion of any kind, isn’t there? Any anger Buffy felt towards him has long since melted in the heat of her own teenage ardour; it evaporated completely the first time they kissed in the aftermath. Willow has no idea how right she is – Buffy loves him. She’ll forgive him for anything, now and forever.

Willow, on the other hand… but she’s a student and maybe she’ll learn something from this. “She didn’t need me.” He’s forced her to meet his gaze by sheer effort of will – it’s her own fault for calling to his nature with her resistance – and he searches her expression for clues. Instinct kicks in and he asks, “Were your parents there?”

The pain he sees makes him almost sorry he asked, but not really, because she needs to understand what they can be to each other, and if forcing her to confide in him makes her see then so be it. He doesn’t have Drusilla’s gift of thrall, but what he has is enough. Her eyes stay locked on his and she softly admits, “My mother.” The tone of her voice tells him far more than those two simple words.

He’s not entirely a demon and this confirmation of his vague suspicions that her home life in no way resembles Buffy causes him genuine pangs of empathy. He knows what it’s like, after all, to have parents who…

Of course, she quickly tries to pull back her unwitting admission. “It’s okay. Really. She doesn’t even remember it now.” She cloaks her face in the mask of a familiar smile he now sees with a jolt is agonizingly insincere. Her friends –her other friends, he amends – would let her get away with this charade. He’s not them.

“But you do.”

“Yeah.” There’s a shine to her eyes now, but she’s stubborn and it’s almost comical the way she constantly tries to put the girl as whose sidekick she’s cast herself back in the spotlight. “Buffy’s Mom helped light the pyres.”

He understands, but he’s not letting her off the hook. “I saw Joyce tonight. She baked cookies for Buffy this afternoon.”

“Oh.” That’s the last poke it takes for the wound to bleed. He watches as her expressive face tells the story of her anguish, her desolation. A moment later and she’s sobbing in his arms.

The warmth of her tears soaking his shirt feels… oddly right, as if she’s giving him something every bit as intimate as her blood. This is what he’s wanted – oh not her sadness, but her confidence, her trust, her secrets. She’s sharing herself with him now – at last – and he feels palpable relief at the prospect of all this inner turmoil he’s been enduring resolving itself as they form themselves into a comfortable friendship.

“It’s okay,” he says softly as her tears keep flowing. When she begins to calm herself, he keeps holding her. This is so different from holding Buffy. He doesn’t think about how much more this means to him than his heated groping with the girl he’s supposed to love more than his own eternal life.

Willow knows nothing of what he’s thinking. When her sobs have ceased, she pulls away and looks up at him. “Thanks.” Then she says something that has him chuckling. “I’ll have your shirt dry-cleaned,” She’s such a very good, pure girl, isn’t she? If only she knew how special she is, how little she needs to follow the example of her worldly friends and classmates.

“I can pay for my own dry cleaning.” As much as he enjoys this display of her innate good manners, she’s intended this exchange as a way to once again ease out of their newborn closeness and he’s not having it. His senses have already told him the answer to this question, but…“Your mother’s gone, isn’t she?”

In a matter of seconds she’s back in his arms, choking out, “She left today,” through a fresh bout of tears. He holds her close, murmuring soothingly as he guides her to the bed. She’ll be more comfortable if she’s seated – that’s his rationale. It has nothing to do with the added intimacy of being on her bed. As they sit, he glances at the plastic enclosure from inside which a small rat whose scent he’s been doing his best to ignore since his arrival regards the scene playing out before her with sharp, beady eyes.

The wretched creature brings those memories dredged up by merely thinking of her earlier into clearer focus by her presence and he hates her for it. Perhaps the rat sees the danger in him, because she suddenly runs and hides under a pile of shavings in the corner of her home. A bitter smile curls one corner of his mouth. That rat reminds him of when his father realized just what had become of his son.

Oh yes, he understands too well the pain in Willow’s heart.

He’s pulled out of his reverie when Willow’s sobs quiet again and she says, “Oz was supposed to come for dinner next week.”

It’s a splash of cold water – holy water – but Angel does his best to remain composed as he says, “Your mother likes him?” One more reason to scoff at the woman’s idea of motherhood. He almost wishes he’d drained her when he didn’t have a soul. Maybe he would have if she’d been around.

Odd that he remembers that all of a sudden.

Maybe it’s not odd… but it should be.

Then Willow shakes her head as she answers him. “No. She hasn’t met him. She didn’t know about him until two days ago.”

Now he’s upset for a different reason. How can that woman not have known about a boy her daughter has been dating for at least a year? He’s more in awe than ever of Willow’s purity, maintained as it is in such a neglectful household. No hothouse flower she. “Your mother didn’t know about Oz?”

His disgust and disdain must be apparent because again she attempts emotional withdrawal. “She didn’t notice my haircut either.”

Soon she’ll learn the meaning of futility. “I can’t believe she can be so completely unconcerned. What kind of a mother doesn’t…”

But Willow quickly interrupts him. “She’s always been like that. It’s okay. Really.” There’s that smile again, wide and false and almost pathetic. He can’t believe she thinks that a friend would let her get away with a statement like that.

He can believe that her other friends have.

“It’s not okay. You deserve much better than that.” Nothing could be more true. Why would any mother not cherish a daughter like this? She’s no callow drunkard, destroying the family’s reputation and finances. She’s bright and caring and good – a volunteer in the fight against evil and a shining beacon of innocence in an amoral world.

Once again, she trots out her threadbare simulacrum of careless acceptance. “It’s not a big deal. Seriously. I like the fact that my parents leave me alone. It beats having to try to explain demon fighting without winding up in an institution. My Mom’s a psychologist.”

That last is absolutely hilarious if you have a taste for irony, but he manages to stifle all but a sharp bark of laughter. Now he knows where her ‘by-the-numbers’ brand of superficially logical camouflage comes from. She needs to realize that he sees through it… sees her… sees her. “You don’t have to pretend with me.”

Never has he been more certain that she needs him, because the tears she’s shared with him are ancient inside; they aren’t the tears of the young woman she is today, but the tears of a child. She has so many more.

Yet still she runs. “You and Buffy – you’ll make things work.”

His own defenses are raw and she couldn’t have picked a worse time to draw him into pursuit. His hand is on her cheek and his face is inches from hers.

Then there’s the most unwelcome – or is it blessed? – sound. “Oh! The phone!” Willow leaps to her feet as if an electric shock has run through her – as if she’s grateful for escape – and nearly trips as she rushes to answer.

Of course Angel knows who it is before she speaks, but he’s still angry when he hears her jubilation. “Oz, hey! I thought you had rehearsal tonight.” Her next words are sharp slap to his face. “Yeah, in fact… why don’t you come over? My Mom’s out of town again.” She acts as if he isn’t there, as if nothing they shared tonight means anything – as if he doesn’t mean anything.

Not wanting to stay to experience more humiliating dismissal, he slips out while she’s still simpering at her swain.

After everything he did for her tonight, this is how he’s treated? Well then, she can have it that way. As much as he’ll always be grateful for his soul, he’s washing his hands of her as anything but a mere acquaintance. He kicks a rock as he walks, realizing even as he does it that it’s a childish gesture but…

That’s it, though, isn’t it? She’s a child and she fears change. It’s not that she’s dismissing him; he’s frightening because he makes her vulnerable. Far safer to her to live in a world where everyone takes it for granted that she needs nothing and no one because that’s what she’s always known. It’s familiar and the pain is something she can handle. But he can overcome that, show her that she doesn’t have to bear that pain alone…

Or at all.

No, Angel’s not going to abandon her at all. Whether she realizes it – accepts it – or not, she desperately needs a friend.

She needs Angel.

 

To be continued…


	9. Studied for the Wrong Exam

Studied for the Wrong Exam  
  
  
  
High school isn’t even over yet, but Willow already feels her world shifting, pieces of it falling away beneath her feet, leaving her dancing for balance as she looks frantically for stable ground.   
  
Buffy being robbed – temporarily, but still – of her power; Giles fired; Amy… Amy playing with her bell toy in the cage Willow struggles to make homey for her.  
  
She feels lost and helpless because she can’t fix anything. Not good enough at magic to fix Buffy – or Amy – and the best she can think of for Giles? An angry letter to the Council? Yeah, like that’ll fix everything. I am Willow, fear my prodigious email powers!  
  
Her only success at anything lately seems to have been her ability to open a daunting peanut butter jar and that was tempered by Buffy’s look of wistful envy when Willow managed what the Slayer couldn’t. Which, come to think of it, turned the jar incident into a confirmation of how much she sucks at magic, so… yes, one more in the badness column.   
  
Even her relationship with Oz feels ephemeral as she struggles to find substance in the fog-shrouded climes of a partnership built of very few words, none of which ever seem to be promises. Like his plans for the future – oh wait, he doesn’t have any. Which is worrying, because Willow has to admit she's a planner type of gal. College, for instance. Oh, she’s still on the fence about exactly which one she’ll attend, but she knows she’s going. Oz? Yeah, not so much.  
  
Maybe it’s a good thing they haven’t had sex after all because she’s not sure she wants her first time to be with a guy who might not even be her guy in a few months.   
  
But then again, she loves Oz, taciturnity, plan-less-ness and all. That’s the one thing she _is_ sure of right now. The problem is more that, even though he took her back after what happened with Xander, and even though he _says_ he loves her, the fact that the ‘no sex’ thing has really been way more his idea than hers doesn’t exactly bolster her confidence in their relationship.   
  
So which is it? Is she glad they haven’t had sex or sorry? Probably both, huh. Great, now she’s as rootless and undecided as… augh!  
  
Think about something else, Willow.   
  
Of course, maybe that’s not such a great idea, because the first person who comes to mind is Buffy, she of the almost-lost Slayer powers and the fired Watcher and… But you know, there is positive spin to all of that, because hey! Even without her powers, Buffy managed to save her Mom. Plus, Giles loves her so much that it cost him his job. Those are good things. Those are _very_ good things.  
  
And hey! Despite the fact that in many ways Buffy’s birthday did have its usual ‘Death and Dismemberment’ theme, there were some bright spots that Buffy had told her about – like the sweet things Angel had said to her and a really romantic birthday gift. She’s sort of almost over feeling creepy about Angel now that she knows how well he’s treating Buffy. _Sonnets from the Portuguese_ is one of Willow’s all-time favorite books of poetry. As much Buffy is less than enthused about it at the moment, she’ll love it too once she gives it another chance and the beauty and magic of the words sink in.   
  
_I love thee to the depth and breadth and height/ My soul can reach when feeling out of sight._  
  
How can anyone not find that incredibly moving?  
  
Willow would be crying tears of joy if Oz had given that book to her.  
  
Speaking of Oz, where is he? He was supposed to meet her here for some pre-Bronze smoochies, but here she is, all dressed up, and… no Oz. Has she made a mistake? Was she supposed to meet Oz there?  
  
Just then, the phone rings. She dives for her nightstand and picks up the receiver before it can ring a second time. “Oz? Hey. I’ve been waiting for… Oh. Okay. Yeah, sure, I understand. That’s important. So yeah, go rehearse. I’ll just go hang out with Buffy and Xander.” She intends to say she loves him, but he hangs up before she can. No, she’s not going to read anything into his haste, because hey, the band has the chance to play at some Battle of the Bands next week in San Jose and that’s a big deal, so she totally gets both his distraction and the importance of as many rehearsals as can be crammed into six days.  
  
But she can’t deny that she’s not exactly in the mood to go get her groove on anymore. Still, she’s dressed to go dancing - even put on a little extra makeup, though she left off the lipstick in anticipation of kiss-age – and what’s the point of staying home and moping? Every time she does that – she tamps down the vaguely anxious feeling she gets at the memory of her last encounter with Angel, because, after all, she’s really close to over that – she ends up regretting it.  
  
So she heads for the bathroom to apply some sparkly lip gloss and, with a last check to make sure her hair looks nice and her skirt is straight, she grabs a jacket and her purse and heads off to Sunnydale’s main – well, _only_ – teenage hotspot.  
  
She has to admit that, given recent history, she sort of half-expected to run into Angel on the way and she also has to admit that she’s sort of happy when she arrives at the door of the club without seeing a trace of him. Not that she doesn’t like him or anything, because, after all, he really is being a super good boyfriend to Buffy, it’s just…  
  
Okay, maybe she’s not as over the whole ‘wiggins’ as she would like to be.  
  
Inside, it’s crowded and noisy, same as usual, the music being loud enough to cover the sound of herds of skittering cockroaches competing for space with the paying customers, but Willow doesn’t see Buffy or Xander. Great. Could tonight just please suck just a little less?   
  
No it couldn’t, because she’s just spotted Cordelia – and what’s worse? Cordelia has spotted her right back. Sure, maybe Cordelia sprayed some water on the flames that almost fried her, but that doesn’t make them friends, a fact confirmed when she sees her on-again-off-again-now-pretty-much-on-ag

ain arch nemesis whisper something to the boy she’s sitting next to as they both laugh… while staring right at her.   
  
There are no good options. She can be brave and hold her head up and Cordelia can mock her continuously for the rest of the night or she can be a coward and leave and… the same thing, plus, she’ll hear all about it in school tomorrow.  
  
Nope, no good options.   
  
She heads for the ladies room, splitting the difference. No, she’s not paying attention to what’s going on in her path because she wants to get away before she can blush or cry or anything else which might be noticed by Cordelia and her sheep. Which is how she winds up barreling right into someone.  
  
“Sorry,” she says without looking up. What she wants is for this to be the end of it and to just keep going; and if she’d barreled into some random guy, she’d be doing just that. Of course, she’s not that lucky.  
  
“Willow?”  
  
Oh god. It’s Angel.  
  
Now she looks up. “Hi.” She smiles, not wanting to get into a discussion of her ever-more-awful evening with him. He’s already stolen too many of her secrets. Can she just walk past him, say she needs to use the ladies room? The look on his face says it would be pointless. He’ll just wait for her. But maybe… “Buffy’s not here. I think she’s probably still on patrol.” Please take the hint and go join her.  
  
But again, this is not the night where things go her way. “I know.” He has that weird, enigmatic look on his face that reminds her that there are all kinds of taciturn and his is nothing like the kind practiced by Oz.   
  
She shrugs, smiles again. “I’m gonna go sit and wait for her – and Xander. They’re supposed to meet me here.” Mentioning Xander – now _that_ should get rid of him.  
  
Naturally, now she feels guilty. Angel looks… well, truthfully she has no idea what his expression means, but what if he’s hurt? Yes, he’s been acting weird but… you know, he was in Hell – Hell! – and maybe she hasn’t been as understanding as she should be. Having recently almost been immolated, she has a sort of glimmer of an idea of the kind of pain he endured, at least if Hell is anything like all the stories. Plus, he’s a vampire with a soul, therefore isn’t he always gonna be sort of different? So okay, maybe she needs to stop expecting him to act like a normal human being and getting wigged all the time. After all, it’s nice that he wants to be her friend… right?  
  
Shoving the misgivings still clamoring for her attention back into the recesses of her brain, she smiles at him again, trying hard to be sincere, and says, “Wanna sit with me while we wait?”  
  
He’s got this intense look in his eyes now and she’s second-guessing herself – or maybe third-guessing – but she can’t seem to look away. “It’s loud in here. Why don’t we take a walk?”  
  
“But what if they…” It’s no use even finishing her observation, reasonable and logical thought it was, because Angel has his hand on her arm and he’s guiding her towards the back door. At least she tells herself it’s guiding, because it’s not like he’s dragging her and she could totally break away if she wanted... it’s just that when she turns back for a brief moment, Cordelia is glaring daggers at her.   
  
Great.   
  
But that’s the reason she lets Angel keep right on guiding her out into the alley. Totally volitional. In no way was it anything like not having a choice.  
  
The air is surprisingly chilly for this time of year and she’s really glad she’s wearing a jacket, that’s for sure. It’s quiet, too. How is that she’s never noticed before how closely the Bronze holds the noise and revelry within its walls, not letting much escape at all? It’s as if the nightclub were sentient, like a demon, feeding on the energy.  
  
Can buildings do that?   
  
She’s not inclined to dismiss her odd fancy as too weird to be true. This is Sunnydale, isn’t it? Maybe Ampata infected it.   
  
Why is she thinking stuff like this? Angel is staring at her again as he asks a very similar question to what she just asked herself: “What are you thinking about?”  
  
Of course, because she’s a total dork, she can’t stop herself from blurting out the truth. “I was just wondering if buildings could be kind of like vampires. I mean, it’s so quiet out here and so noisy in there and…” Her voice trails off. It sounds so much stupider when she says it than it did in her head.  
  
Angel’s not laughing at her, though, or even giving her that soft, bemused, indulgent smile that Oz always does when she shares her wacky thoughts. He looks like he’s turning the idea over in his head, like he’s taking it seriously. She should find that flattering or at least nice, but she doesn’t.  
  
It gives her the creeps.  
  
“Maybe we should go look for Buffy,” she suggests. “I’ll bet she really wants to tell you again how much she likes her birthday gift.” Smooth, Willow.  
  
The response she gets is a rueful chuckle. “I somehow doubt that.”  
  
How can Willow not feel badly for him now? Because it’s so obvious that Buffy didn’t hide her disappointment all that well and it’s just as obvious that he’s hurt by the fact that she isn’t yet on board the Browning train. Willow has to reassure him. “Once she gives it a chance, you know, sits down in her room when it’s quiet and she’s not worried about slaying and stuff and really reads it, she’ll love it. She has to! I mean, what girl wouldn’t be thrilled to know that her boyfriend thinks of her with lines like ‘I love thee with a love I seemed to lose with my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears of all my life.’?”   
  
She loses herself in the beauty of poetry for a moment and when she comes back to Earth, she notices that Angel is staring at her. Oh god! Did she just act like a total geek?   
  
Maybe not. Because if the ‘oh-god-what-a-total-loser-you-are’ look is the same for vampires as it is for hum… well, Cordelia-types, then that’s not the look he’s wearing right now, so she’s not actually sure what the stare means, but she doesn’t like it.   
  
“You read poetry.” He doesn’t sound like he’s asking a question but Willow still feels defensive.  
  
“Yeah. Just because I’m into computers, that doesn’t mean I don’t care about the humanities – literature, art…”  
  
His hand goes up and she dutifully stops in mid-sentence. “I know. I just meant that you… You don’t see many people quoting poetry these days.” She thinks one element of the stare might be admiration.  
  
“Oh.” Now she feels guilty again even as those tendrils of foreboding sneak out from under the door of the closet in the back of her mind. She really, really hates mixed feelings. Could Buffy and Xander please show up now?   
  
“Where’s Oz tonight?” It sounds like an idle question, but… is that the flash of something shrewd in his eyes or is she just being paranoid?  
  
She’s taking paranoia for two hundred, Alex, because what kind of ulterior motive could he have for asking a question anyone who knows her would ask? “He’s with the Dingoes. They’re rehearsing for this big Battle of the Bands that’s coming up.” That last is said with pride, because what Oz is doing… he could get a record deal. Right? That happens at these Battle things.  
  
“Must be a sudden change of plans,” he says and now the hairs on the back of her neck stand up because… “You’re dressed up. You usually only dress like this when you’re with him or planning to meet him,” he explains and now the hairs are stick straight and unbending. That kind of observance is just…   
  
But he _is_ a vampire, so isn’t being all observant kind of normal for him? He probably knows just as much stuff about Xander.  
  
He doesn’t; she knows he doesn’t. Yes, she’s back to having an official Angel-wiggins.  
  
“Buffy told me what you said, about when you fell in love with her.” Why is it that now, whenever she gets uncomfortable with Angel, she blurts out something about Buffy? She doesn’t know – doesn’t _want_ to know – but she keeps on blurting. “It was beautiful, you know? And I know it means a lot to her.”  
  
She’s hoping – really, really hoping – that he’ll get the same kind of dreamy, lovestruck expression she’d seen on Buffy’s face the last time she’d talked about it, but instead… she wants to blame the difference on gender or species, but… no. Is it because of the curse?  
  
That’s it, right? That has to be it.   
  
Finally, though, he says something and for a moment Willow is sure it’s exactly what she wants to hear. “I loved her at first sight.” There’s something, though; something about the emphasis she hears on the past tense. But that’s just her wiggins talking, right?   
  
“That’s so sweet.” She adds a kind smile and hopes that at last she’ll get the reaction she’s looking for because otherwise she’s going to lose the one thing about Angel that’s keeping him in her good books.   
  
Instead, he turns on her. “You know, he could have invited you to his rehearsal.”  
  
Huh? Where did that come from? Because it’s totally off-topic and… it’s mean, okay? Very, very mean. “It’s rehearsal. They don’t like distractions.” Even as she says it, though, she acknowledges to herself that he hit a nerve.   
  
He snorts. “If he loved you, he’d want you there.”  
  
Okay, now he’s done it. “You don’t know anything about Oz. Or me.” She’s angry now and not even stopping to think before she keeps right on ranting at him. “You know, you said you wanted to be my friend, and I was willing to give you a chance, but this… this stuff you’re doing? Putting someone down and trying to make them feel bad? If that’s what you think friendship is, then Cordelia’s inside. Why don’t you go in there and be _her_ friend? Because us? We’re not friends. In fact, I think from now on, it would be a really good idea if you never spoke to me.”  
  
With that, she turns on her heel, prepared to storm off, head held high in righteous indignation, but then…  
  
Angel grabs her arm and holds her fast. As she turns back to face him, his eyes flash gold and she’s as terrified of him now as she ever was when he didn’t have a soul. “I _am_ your friend.” His pleading voice contrasts with his expression in a way that has her brain scrambling to make sense of things. “I just hate to see you being taken advantage of. Can’t you understand?”  
  
His eyes… they’re darker than she’s ever seen and she’s getting lost in them. Her brain might be confused, but it knows enough to light up the word ‘danger’ in big, bright neon letters and she hears herself almost beg, “Let me go, okay?”  
  
While he doesn’t say a word, he does let go.   
  
Without giving him a chance to explain – or change his mind – Willow errs on the side of melodramatic caution.  
  
She runs out of the alley as fast as she can. When she gets home, she doesn’t think about the fact that if Angel really wanted to, he could have caught up with her at any moment. She’s just glad to be in her own room where she can tell herself she was really silly and blew everything up out of proportion. At least that’s how she’ll see it from now on. Because she absolutely has to believe that.  
  
But she’s still not going to talk to Angel anymore.  
  
  
  
To be continued…


	10. Answer Key

Answer Key  
  
  
The harder Angel tries to put his world straight, the more askew it sits. It doesn’t make sense, or, perhaps worse, it does and he is desperate not to see.  
  
The strangest part is that he’s not nearly as upset about what he’s lost as he is about the fact of having lost it.   
  
He makes what is an increasingly perfunctory effort to find his old footing, thinking of Buffy and waiting for the spark to return.  
  
She’d been helpless, well, helpless for a Slayer, anyway. Funny how it seemed sadder and more pathetic than if she had been a normal girl. But he hadn’t told her that; no, he’d given her the fairy tale, the love at first sight when he’d seen her in the sunlight, already knowing what she’d soon learn – that the darkness which was her destiny had come for her.  
  
That pretty story had been the truth, after a fashion. He’d loved her then, or thought he had. How can he possibly know for sure now? How could he have known _then_? What had been his basis for comparison?  
  
Sometimes he wonders who he is. Is he Angel, formerly Angelus, even more formerly Liam? Or is he just some random sufferer plucked from the bowels of Hell and given this identity for the amusement of… the Devil, the First Evil, whoever? It might explain a few things, the difference in his feelings for one.  
  
No, it isn’t that simple, though he supposes a part of him truly wishes that it was. For the first time in a long time, he misses… no, that’s a lie, he misses his reflection every day. Vanity, probably. He remembers a handsome face – the face of an angel, they’d been wont to say. The cliché from which sprang the sobriquet he’s held for longer than ever he did his so-called Christian name.  
  
Three names has he and three lives… or is it four? Should he take a new name now, one to suit the creature he’s become since Hell opened its mouth and vomited him back upon the Earth?  
  
He wishes he could, but he can’t, can he? Not here where no one realizes that centuries in Hell have changed him… no one perhaps save one person, and it’s not Buffy.  
  
It’s Willow. She sees, he knows that; it’s why she’s afraid of him. There’s a girl who fears the unknown.  
  
She embraces it though, for all that it terrifies her, and he can’t help but admire her for that. Never once has he seen her back away from the fight simply because she’s mortal and weak and unfit for the fray. Never once has he seen her consider backing down because she doesn’t have the extraordinary powers of a Slayer, not even before she’d acquired her skills in magic.  
  
As unfair as it is, he can’t help but compare her to Buffy and find the latter wanting. But does that even make sense? Buffy is nothing like Willow. She was carefree and happy with everything a girl could want until she was pressganged into this eternal war and saddled with a sacred duty. She embraced it, fully and completely, but she’s never known what it was like to do this work without her enhanced strength and heightened senses. It’s only natural that when they were taken away…  
  
That’s what’s really bothering him, isn’t it? The way she reacted to being normal again. No matter how charitable a spin he puts on it, the truth is that she was more concerned about how her loss of Slayer power would affect _his_ feelings for her than what it would mean to the fight against evil.  
  
Though if she was so concerned with his feelings, the least she could have done was put on a decent show of appreciating his gift. He snorts as an image of her face as she looked at that volume of exquisite poetry appears before his mind’s eye. Plastic earrings from the mall would have elicited more genuine enthusiasm and appreciation. It occurs to him that she doesn’t even truly know the man he was before she ran him through and banished him to a land of infernal torment. Who was it she took into her body that one fateful night? Who was the man whose tryst was bought with Angel’s coin?  
  
Solitude is no friend at the moment. He’s going to be as deranged as Dru if he keeps up this brooding and introspection. Looking around, he realizes just how oppressive and lugubrious this place really is – right down to the crumbling stone. He needs to leave, to go somewhere, anywhere but here.   
  
He goes upstairs and changes, not for any particular reason save for a desire to treat this outing as something deliberate and not as a flight from his dismal home and even more dismal frame of mind. A slightly dressier shirt and trousers seem to be just the thing, at least to his way of thinking. With some attention first paid to his hair, he’s out the door and on his way… where? Because he’s in the mood to be surrounded by people and enough noise and chatter to drown out the truth roaring in his head.  
  
So to which of the pathetically few establishments in this town should he hie himself? Willie’s? No, it’s drab and disreputable and suitable only for the kind of drinking in which he hasn’t indulged since the night he met Darla in an alley. That leaves the Bronze… where he’s likely to run into Buffy.  
  
Would that be so bad? Maybe if he sees her the rush of borrowed blood to his groin which usually accompanies her scantily-clad dance floor gyrations will convince him anew that she’s the love of his unlife – or at least fuel a satisfying bout of self-gratification later.  
  
The Bronze it is then.   
  
He slips in the back door, as is his custom, but he doesn’t feel her presence. Still patrolling, he supposes, or maybe she changed her mind and went home after patrol. He highly doubts the latter. Buffy’s well past her recent need to bond with her mother. She sloughs things off easily, which makes sense for a Slayer, so how can he criticize her for it? Something inside him does, though; he can’t help it.   
  
Loving a Slayer and yet despising the very things in her that make her what she is? It’s a conundrum and not a pleasant one, but there it is. Her mother led the townspeople on a crusade which not only nearly got her killed, but came even closer to killing the girl she claims as her best friend, yet now she acts as if it never happened. Would she be as blasé about hundreds of years in Hell? She certainly seems to believe _he_ is. Not a single question and she has offered no comfort since right after his return. The same goes for that even more recent time when he nearly met the sunrise to escape the ghosts of his soulless past.  
  
No longer can he fool himself into believing that getting a hard-on at the sight of Buffy shaking her tits for all and sundry will fix the damage to their relationship wrought by time and torment… and truth.  
  
Maybe he should leave.  
  
Yes, he probably should, but he doesn’t. Instead, he stays rooted in place, his eyes sweeping the room. There’s Cordelia Chase, whispering to some none-too-bright-looking boy as she laughs pointedly at someone across the dance floor. He follows her line of sight to…  
  
Willow. She’s here.   
  
He’s about to walk over and approach her when he thinks better of it. After their last encounter, he thinks being so direct would be a mistake. Better to let things happen ‘accidentally’. After all, the back door is located near the restrooms. Sooner or later, human biological need will assert itself and she’ll head in this direction.  
  
It looks like sooner rather than later, so he slips back into the shadows, waits for her approach and…  
  
Exactly as he’d hoped, she barrels right into him. “Sorry,” she says, but her eyes are focused on the ground and it’s clear she has no idea who she’s hit.   
  
He continues to pretend he had no idea she was here. “Willow?” His tone of surprise is convincing; he’d believe it himself.   
  
Willow certainly does. “Hi.” Of course then she immediately defaults to cramming him right back into the box labeled ‘Buffy’s boyfriend.’ She’s been doing that more and more of late. “Buffy’s not here. I think she’s probably still on patrol.”  
  
He keeps his expression neutral. It would be wrong to be irritated since he admittedly came here in search of Buffy and the oblivion of uncomplicated lust. What he found instead… “I know,” he says calmly, enjoying the confusion he can see in Willow’s eyes. There’s a certain pleasure in keeping her off balance. His demon warms to the game, or at least he tells himself that it’s his demon… and that his demon is some separate entity, divorced from who he _really_ is. He’s had enough truth for one night.  
  
“I’m gonna go sit and wait for her – and Xander. They’re supposed to meet me here.” That last name is a buzzkill. What kind of demon is Oz, he wonders, allowing Willow to consort with the boy who helped make him a cuckold?   
  
She’s trying to put him off, he realizes. It’s clear their last conversation is still haunting her, unsettling her. Good. It’s clear she knows deep down that changes have occurred and will keep occurring and, child that she is, she’s resistant. But she’s not shoving things back into the old places if he has anything to say about it, which he does. He conjures a look of repressed loneliness and lets it work its magic. She may be frightened, but her soft heart will conquer.  
  
And it does. “Wanna sit with me while we wait?”  
  
The answer to her question? His desire for noise and crowds vanished the moment he caught sight of her. They’re not staying in here. “It’s loud in here. Why don’t we take a walk?”  
  
As he says it, he already has his hand on her arm and is leading her toward the back door, her weak protest swallowed up by his control.   
  
This is the buzz humans look for in cocaine and amphetamines.  
  
Soon enough, they’re in the alley and the quiet is a stunning contrast to the din they’ve left behind. He’s let go of her arm and he watches as her face takes on a distracted, thoughtful look. It’s… charming and he longs to know what’s going on behind those wide, innocent eyes.   
  
There’s no harm in asking, is there? “What are you thinking about?”   
  
She looks caught – and embarrassed, as if thinking is an activity of which she should be ashamed. More proof that she needs him; the friends she has now are a pathetic bunch. “I was just wondering if buildings could be kind of like vampires. I mean, it’s so quiet out here and so noisy in there and…” Her voice trails off and he can sense the heat rising from her skin as she colours slightly, afraid she’s said something foolish.  
  
Her notion isn’t foolish at all. In Sunnydale, anything might be possible. Humans give off so much energy, their emotions uncontrolled and wild. Could it seep into walls, creating monsters unknown even to the Watchers? The idea has merit. The mansion… could it too have a malevolent nature all its own? He can believe that given his inability to find a moment’s true peace within its confines.  
  
His interest in her conjecture has clearly unnerved her. “Maybe we should go look for Buffy.” She’s a frightened fawn realizing that she’s in the realm of a predator. If only she could see that he’s no wolf and his fangs don’t itch to rip her apart. Then she adds something that strikes a nerve. “I’ll bet she really wants to tell you again how much she likes her birthday gift.”  
  
Unable to contain his reaction, he chuckles mirthlessly. “I somehow doubt that.” If only she knew how little Buffy cared for the book he’d offered her. She might as well have tossed it into the fire in his hearth for all it meant to her.  
  
Was it then that he’d realized what a sham it had all become?  
  
Willow knows nothing of his thoughts, but she clearly sees his disappointment and she tries to comfort him. “Once she gives it a chance, you know, sits down in her room when it’s quiet and she’s not worried about slaying and stuff and really reads it, she’ll love it. She has to! I mean, what girl wouldn’t be thrilled to know that her boyfriend thinks of her with lines like ‘I love thee with a love I seemed to lose with my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears of all my life.’?”  
  
There are no words for his astonishment. Not only does she know of these masterful sonnets, but she can quote them from memory. Her expression as she recites the word illuminates her and she’s lovelier at this moment than ever in all the time he’s known her – or perhaps he just sees the fullness of her beauty for the first time.  
  
Inside of him, things are shifting, transforming – or perhaps merely being unearthed as if by some archaeologist – and he’s at a loss to say what he should. All he can manage is, “You read poetry.”  
  
Obviously, she’s misunderstood his meaning, because her hackles rise and she’s on the defensive. “Yeah. Just because I’m into computers, that doesn’t mean I don’t care about the humanities – literature, art…”  
  
He’s taken aback that she thinks he’s underestimated her and he’s not sure how to respond. “I know. I just meant that you… You don’t see many people quoting poetry these days.”  
  
That, combined with the absolute sincerity and deference of his manner have defused her irritation. “Oh.” She’s back where she belongs now – in the submissive position.  
  
Time to change the subject to one where he’s less vulnerable and also where he can regain his advantage. “Where’s Oz tonight?”  
  
For a split second, she seems fragile, but she quickly plasters a cheery expression on her face as she replies, “He’s with the Dingoes. They’re rehearsing for this big Battle of the Bands that’s coming up.”  
  
Angel stifles the urge to burst into mocking laughter. Do they really think they can win this so-called battle? They might as well fight a horde of vampires with plastic teaspoons. But no, he’s not going to announce his rather dim view of Oz’s musical abilities. Instead, he takes in her more-flattering-than-usual attire and the fact that she’s wearing makeup and observes, “Must be a sudden change of plans. You’re dressed up. You usually only dress like this when you’re with him or planning to meet him.”  
  
It’s obvious that his keen attention to her sartorial habits has unsettled her. He can sense the anxiety vibrating along the edges of her bones.  
  
So of course, she does what she always does when he’s backed her into a corner where she might be forced to face reality. “Buffy told me what you said, about when you fell in love with her. It was beautiful, you know? And I know it means a lot to her.” Yes, she’s thrown Buffy back at his head again. Keep trying, little girl. Sooner or later, you’ll realize that the boundaries have shifted and the rules have changed and the one true friend you have is standing before you.  
  
He pauses for a moment as he debates whether to let her think she’s won this skirmish. He decides that would be a good tactic, for all that it galls him to allow anyone to think they’ve won the day. That old cliché about losing the battle to win the war is, after all, only a cliché because it always works. He looks at Willow and gives in. “I loved her at first sight.” That is the truth, or the truth as he once believed with all his unbeating heart, and that’s good enough.  
  
Willow however, takes it for far more than it’s worth. “That’s so sweet.” The smile on her face… is it relief? Or is that just his fancy? Either way, she’s too comfortable now and he’s undone some of the work he believes he’d finally accomplished.  
  
Time to apply pressure again. “You know, he could have invited you to his rehearsal.” She needs to realize that the world she considers so safe and comfortable is an illusion. What he’s saying now? _That_ is truth.  
  
Naturally, she continues to fight, but she’s wavering slightly as she responds with a very weak justification for her swain’s thoughtlessness. “It’s rehearsal. They don’t like distractions.”  
  
Really? Is that his excuse? It seems a paltry one to Angel and he says as much. “If he loved you, he’d want you there.”  
  
He’d meant to provoke sadness and a willingness at last to admit she needs his friendship. What he’s done, however, is damage his cause immeasurably. Willow rounds on him with a fury that would have cowed the Master. “You don’t know anything about Oz. Or me. You know, you said you wanted to be my friend, and I was willing to give you a chance, but this… this stuff you’re doing? Putting someone down and trying to make them feel bad? If that’s what you think friendship is, then Cordelia’s inside. Why don’t you go in there and be _her_ friend? Because us? We’re not friends. In fact, I think from now on, it would be a really good idea if you never spoke to me.”  
  
Shit! She’s turned on her heel and is about to storm off. She has the gall to turn her back on him. He can feel the ridges of his true face struggle to emerge. While he can stop it from happening, he can’t stop his fury at being hectored for trying to make her see reason from colouring his expression as he grabs her arm and forces her to turn to face him once more. All he can do to ameliorate it is to keep his tone of voice conciliatory. “I _am_ your friend. I just hate to see you being taken advantage of. Can’t you understand?”  
  
For a moment, a fleeting moment, he feels her get lost in his eyes… and feels another truth bloom from the soil inside as desire takes hold. It takes every bit of self-control he has not to shove her up against the alley wall and punish her lips for the tirade they unleashed by possessing them with all the ferocity of a demon – a real demon, not that mongrel whose paw she holds… to push up her skirt and take her in a way that will teach that same pathetic cur how to mark its property… to teach her what her place is for once and for all – on her knees, her back, wherever he would have her.  
  
Only the terror of what that would mean, of the rain of death and destruction that would follow, makes him let go when she all but begs, and keeps him from waiting to follow her until they both feel the emptiness of his not being near her.  
  
She makes it home safely; he allows himself to see that much.  
  
Angel, on the other hand? That’s a different story.  
  
  
  
To be continued…


	11. Uncomfortable Awareness

Uncomfortable Awareness  
  
  
  
Xander slept with Faith.  
  
Xander slept with Faith.  
  
Oh god. He slept with that skanky, leather-wearing… murderer! Xander has had sex with a murderer.  
  
It shouldn’t hurt this much, but it does. Willow loves Oz and she doesn’t wish the fluking with Xander had continued, but… Yes, it hurts. It hurts more than she ever thought it could. She feels… betrayed? Is that what it is? Yes, it’s betrayal and it’s like acid in her gut and she thought she’d gotten over the tears, but here she is sitting in the library with everyone talking about saving Faith and the tears are waiting behind her eyes, plotting their escape.  
  
What? Wait? Huh? Okay, she’s just been drafted to help find Faith? Great. Does no one care that she’d be just as happy to have Faith disappear forever? Guess not, because she gets to go check out Miss Five by Five’s favorite haunts.  
  
“I’ll go with them. They’ll need my help if they find her.”  
  
Oh great. It’s bad enough that she’s supposed to be alone with Xander on this mission, but now Angel – _Angel_ – has attached himself to their search party? God. Her night cannot get worse. Her _life_ cannot get worse.  
  
Oz _would_ have to be in San Jose for some stupid Dingoes gig. Not that the Dingoes are stupid – or that Oz is – it’s just… She doesn’t know what she means, she just knows that she’s surrounded by people who bring her pain and she wants Oz to hold her and make her feel safe and warm and not confused and betrayed and alone…  
  
And scared.   
  
The scared part is ridiculous, she knows, but yes, being around Angel gives her the creeps. Plus, she still hates him, which makes everything worse. Everything he said in the alley behind the Bronze is ringing in her ears.  
  
It doesn’t help that Oz is with the Dingoes… or that nothing really came of the Battle of the Bands thing she wasn’t able to attend and he barely spoke about when he came home. Music isn’t something they share – or, more accurately, it’s not something he shares with her.   
  
No, she’s never told him that she used to play piano. Why is that?  
  
Weirdly, she has a sudden desire to play again, to see if her fingers still retain some memory of what to do when placed on the keyboard. Her teacher once told her that if she only had confidence… but she never did. She’s always seen herself as being a creature of numbers and elements; of science, not art.  
  
She halts her reverie, panicked that she has again missed important conversational points, but she’s lucky – Angel and Xander are silent. Oh they’re glaring at each other and Xander is making irritated ‘humphing’ noises, but no one’s talking. Maybe it will stay that way. She sure hopes so.  
  
But, in keeping with her luck in general lately… “You know, Willow and I really don’t need you to babysit us. Why don’t you go check the airport or something?”  
  
There’s a short burst of mocking laughter from Angel. “Yeah. Because you really know how to handle Faith by yourself. Was that what you were doing back at the motel?”  
  
What? What is he talking about? Xander went to… “You were at the motel with Faith?” Did they have sex again?  
  
“I was trying to reason with her.”  
  
“After Buffy told you not to?”   
  
Xander has stopped walking and he’s clearly upset. “You know, Buffy’s not the boss of me. And she’s not always right.”  
  
“Yeah, because you were doing such a great job of ‘reasoning’,” Angel makes a sarcastic air quote gesture and Willow’s stomach twists, “with Faith. Another minute of that reasoning and Willow and I would be searching for her by ourselves.”   
  
Now she’s forgotten as Xander turns his ire on Angel. “I’ll have you know I had her right where I wanted her.”  
  
Angel’s laughter is sharp and it echoes unsettlingly in the night air. “And here I had you pegged as more of a vanilla kind of guy. Gee, Xander, I had no idea you were into breath play.”  
  
Into what? Breath play? Oh god. She’d looked up kinks once – all right, maybe more than once, but that isn’t the point. The point is… “She was choking you?” The worst part is that she’s not sure she doesn’t want to either. Maybe she wants to choke Buffy too. No one told her. Was anyone even _going_ to tell her? Isn’t she important enough to know stuff? Because she thought she had left the pre-Buffy world where the cool kids all mocked her and she was always ten steps behind everyone else.  
  
She can’t go back to that place, not all alone.  
  
Of course, just when she thinks she’s hit bottom… “No one told you?” Gee, thanks, Angel. Your concern is so welcome. Oh wait. It isn’t.  
  
“A lot’s been happening,” she says, defending the people who deep down she believes were never going to tell her anything. “Everyone’s been busy with important things.”  
  
Okay, the look on his face? It’s supposed to be concerned and understanding but it’s creepy and disturbing. Luckily – finally, some luck – Xander speaks up. “I’m sorry, Will. I should have told you. It’s just…”  
  
“You were embarrassed because you did something stupid? I’d think you’d be over that by now, what with your track record.”  
  
She turns back to Angel, glaring at him with a venom that almost scares her. Then she softens her expression before responding to her best friend. “It’s okay. I get it. Things got kinda crazy.” She goes to him and hugs him for good measure. Yes, she’s still upset – her Faith issues aren’t going anywhere soon – but she’s mature enough to admit that she overreacted… at least to not being told about his return visit to Faith’s room.   
  
“Thanks.” Xander tightens his hold on her briefly before letting go and then directing his own belated glare at Angel. “We should get back to hunting for Faith. There’s no telling what she’ll do now and...”  
  
“We need to stop her before she does it,” Willow finishes cheerily, determined to be a plucky little soldier and get over all her angst.  
  
So they head for the section of Sunnydale Willow barely knew about before – one in which there are tattoo parlours and dive bars unafraid to serve alcohol to underage girls so long as they have a minimalist kind of fashion sense. Willow sees a disturbing number of those girls, including two she recognizes from school. Oh god. One of them is Lynda. She’s on the honour roll. What the heck is she doing in this part of town? With a guy who’s wearing more leather than Angelus ever had at that.  
  
But there’s no sign of Faith. Guess she’s smart enough to stay away from any place she’s known to hang out. Maybe they should check libraries and convents instead. Not like anyone would think to look for her _there_.   
  
Angel heads for the payphone in the back of the latest in the seemingly endless number of sleazy bars they’ve searched and they follow him, Willow more reluctantly than Xander. She’s having flashbacks to other times she’s been with Angel in the dark corners of nightspots.   
  
She stays behind Xander as Angel places a call. “Giles? Yeah. We haven’t… Oh. Buffy found her?” There’s a long silence that Willow assumes is being filled on the other end of the phone by details about Buffy saving the day – or night, really, to be strictly accurate - and then Angel says, “I’ll make sure they get home safely.”  
Can this be the part where Xander says they’ll be just fine on their own? Maybe not, because just then, a fight breaks out about ten feet away and – oh look! Weapons. Are those switchblades or just regular ol’ knives? You know, this seems scarier and potentially more… real and violent than battling demons in the local cemetery does. Is that because it’s between human beings and it almost certainly has no lofty purpose like Buffy fighting to save the world from the forces of darkness? She doesn’t know. What she _does_ know is that she’s unarmed and this is not her milieu. Xander seems to feel the same way. So no, they don’t protest as Angel hustles them out the back door into an alley so filthy it makes the one behind the Bronze seem as sterile as an operating room.  
  
Of course, she’s never been trapped in this one by a vampire tearing her life to pieces with words sharper than his teeth. If it weren’t for the whole thing about there being a whole lot of criminal types around here, she’d think it pretty cozy.  
  
Now that feeling is shattered by Angel taking her arm. She glares at him, but he ignores her and she so does not want to bring up their recent argument in front of Xander. In fact, she’s never told anyone anything about her conversations with Angel, has she? So maybe her anger at not being told stuff is sort of hypocritical. Okay, if she’s completely fair about it, it’s less ‘sort of’ and more ‘absolutely’.  
  
Who would she tell, though, and what exactly should she tell them? Because, being objective and keeping her eye on the big picture, there’s trouble on the horizon and Angel’s help might be necessary. Would stirring up any negative feelings against him on the part of any of her friends really serve the greater good? Probably not, huh?  
  
That means she’s going to keep her mouth shut for the time being even though she now feels very uncomfortable about it.  
  
She’s even more uncomfortable about Angel not letting go of her arm as the three of them walk hastily down the street leading them back toward a much nicer part of town. She can feel his touch all the way through to her bones and she shivers. Unfortunately, Angel notices. “You’re cold,” he says, and she wants to contradict him, but before she can do more than open her mouth, he’s taken off his jacket and placed it over her shoulders, which pretty much negates any joy at the absence of his fingers on her arm.  
  
“So, what happened with Faith?” Xander asks and there’s this look in his eyes that says he still cares about her even though she tried to kill him not too long ago. It reminds Willow that Angel isn’t the only upsetting thing in her life and it’s incredibly unwelcome. Is she the only person who thinks that Faith is shallow, narcissistic, and psychotic… and that those are her _good_ qualities?  
  
“Buffy tracked her down and everything seems to be copacetic. That’s all I know.” It’s possible that that is all Angel knows or it’s equally possible he’s keeping the details to himself because he hates Xander and enjoys irritating him with a terse, uninformative response.  
  
It scares her that she no longer tries to find innocuous excuses for Angel’s antisocial behavior. Then again, he’s not Buffy’s glamourously mysterious vampire boyfriend anymore, at least that’s not the way Willow sees him.  
  
“Maybe we should stop by the library,” Xander starts to suggest, but Angel quickly cuts him off.  
  
“Giles told me to get you two home. I’m sure you’ll get all the details tomorrow.” Normally those would have been fighting words, but there’s something in his tone… Even Xander can hear it and he backs down, muttering something derogatory under his breath, but not pressing the issue.  
  
Unfortunately, at least from Willow’s point of view, Xander’s house is closer so they get there first. Which means now she’s alone with Angel – exactly what she has been trying to avoid for the past couple of weeks. “I can make it from here,” she says, handing him his jacket and walking briskly away as if to illustrate the point, but Angel doesn’t get the hint and he’s by her side in a flash, grabbing her arm and forcing her to stop in her tracks.  
  
This is so not okay. “Look,” she says, amping up her Resolve Face for all it's worth, “I told you before that I don’t want to talk to you or have anything to do with you, so if you feel like you have to follow me home to make sure I get there safely, okay, but do it from a distance. I’m not spending another minute with you.”  
  
Angel’s eyes flash gold – only for a split second, but Willow sees it and in that moment she realizes that she made a big mistake. His hand remains tight on her arm and he’s dragging her down the street. “We’re going to talk,” he says, but after that, he’s silent and she becomes more and more afraid with every step they take towards her house.  
  
They get there quickly, Willow nearly tripping more than once as she struggles to keep pace with the man controlling her. Not for the first time does she wish her parents were home, but they’re not and there’s no use trying to lie to Angel, so she opens her front door and enters just before he does. Not like he needs an invitation anymore.  
  
Why didn’t she do the uninvite spell?  
  
Her living room isn't the ideal place for a meeting with someone she hates, but it’s much safer ground than her bedroom and she’s glad he seems content to remain here. “W-what do you want to talk about?” She was aiming for an antagonistic tone, but instead, the tremor gives away just how scared of him she is.  
  
That jacket she’d been forced to wear has been hung on the coat rack in the entry, but he’s just as large and dark a presence without the leather and she thinks she’d rather have any of the denizens of that bar they just fled here with her right now. Especially as he approaches her and she realizes she’s hemmed in between the sofa and the fireplace. “You don’t need to be afraid of me,” he says in a voice suddenly gone gentle. Paradoxically, she fears him more than ever. She knows enough to be wary of demons with candy.  
  
“I’m not afraid of you,” she lies.  
  
He’s closer than ever, reaching out to touch her cheek. She flinches and her lie is laid bare. “I’m your friend,” he says in that same gentle voice. Is this how Angelus lured his victims into the dark?  
  
No, she’s not letting this go on. “You’re not my friend,” she argues, her voice gone suddenly stern with a bravery that almost dazzles her. “My friends don’t go out of their way to insult me and make me feel bad, which you did. Ergo, you are not my friend.”  
  
The gloves are off now and Angel’s voice isn’t the low, soft thing it was. “A true friend wouldn’t stand by and watch you get mistreated. A friend would tell you when they see that, and that’s what I did. If you’d just open your eyes…” He stops and seems to be struggling with something. A shrill alarm goes off inside Willow and she looks desperately for escape. There’s holy water and a cross in her room – if only she could get there.  
  
There’s no path open; Angel has her penned in. “I love Oz. And he loves me.” She stands tall, chin thrust forward, eyes meeting his.  
  
Another mistake. “He’s not here.” Is Angel smirking? She thinks he is.  
  
“He has a gig, okay? It’s important.”  
  
“More important to him than you are.”   
  
He’s not asking and Willow can’t pretend that he is, but she argues anyway. “You don’t know him and you don’t know me, and I’d really appreciate it if…” Angel has moved forward suddenly and she’s backed up against the fireplace, his arms on both sides. If she thought she was trapped before, she most certainly is now. “Can you please leave?” she pleads.  
  
His shake of the head is her answer and that gentle voice returns, sending a cold, damp chill up her spine. “You can do so much better.”   
  
Oh god. His hand is now on her waist, his thumb rubbing circles that seem to burn through her sweater and feel like acid against her skin. “I love him,” she repeats, but more desperately this time as she looks away, not wanting to see what she just saw in Angel’s eyes.  
  
This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening. Because Angel loves Buffy. Willow is plain, to everyone but Oz, and dorky and a total geek and – hey! – so very glad to be all of those things, because that means that there’s no way that…  
  
Angel is kissing her.  
  
One of his hands holds tight to the back of her head while the one at her waist has moved to her back and he’s holding her close – so close, too close – and there’s his tongue inside of her mouth and it feels like… oh god, it’s like a rehearsal for an even more intimate and degrading violation and she hates this, hates him.  
  
She’s not enjoying this one bit. He’s demanding and aggressive and he doesn’t care at all that he’s hurting her and that she hates the taste of him and the way he’s grabbing her and manhandling her because… she can feel how very much he _doesn’t_ hate this in a thick hardness pressed against her and she’s never been as terrified of anything in her life – not even of being burned alive – as she is of what Angel might do to her right now.  
  
Oddly, it’s at this moment that something from a book she read long ago comes to mind – though not now and probably not ever could she recall which one it was – and she suddenly goes soft and pliant in Angel’s arms. It does the trick. He moans and his guard is down just long enough…  
  
For her to bring her foot down as hard as she can on his. “Ow!” he cries and later she’ll laugh at the unmanliness of it, but for now she’s too busy racing up the stairs to her room and locking the door behind her.  
  
She doesn’t hear him follow, but to be on the safe side, she’s got her holy water and a stake and she’s right by the phone as she yells, “I’m armed and I’ll call Buffy if you don’t leave right this second!”  
  
The front door slams and she thinks she can feel the house shake with the force of it, but that might just be her because she’s still trembling. Only now does she think about Angel’s curse, but weirdly, she’s no more afraid than she was before. It doesn’t matter. Two minutes later, the uninvite spell has been performed.  
  
Even though she knows he can’t get in, she takes a blanket and pillow and beds down for the night in her closet. It takes her a long, long time to go to sleep.   
  
What is she going to do now?  
  
  
  
To be continued…


	12. Invisble Ink

Invisible Ink  
  
  
Xander Harris got lucky with Faith.   
  
Angel’s still boggling at the notion, but he can’t blame the boy; not like he’d never thought about it himself. She’d made it pretty clear that she was open – legs and all – to the possibility, and when she was in chains…  
  
Hey, he’s horny and it’s not like screwing the second string Slayer would have been anything like perfect happiness, but go try explaining that to a teenage girl. Buffy would never understand the difference between what they’d done and him getting his rocks off with someone for whom he feels nothing save a vague sort of sympathy at being dealt a pretty sad hand in life, though he does feel that.   
  
It must be chafing to live in the long, cold wasteland that is Buffy’s shadow.  
  
That doesn’t, however, make murder okay, and no matter what she’s been through, Faith’s human and she has no excuse for the remorselessness that everyone but perhaps the Watchers Council seems to be trying to rationalize.   
  
But Buffy is still gung ho about trying to find and rehabilitate the girl and since everyone else here seems to be on board, he’s willing to go along with the idea. But then he hears her come up with the most asinine and dangerous plan.  
  
She wants to send Xander and Willow out in search of Faith… by themselves? Guess she forgot about the fact that Faith had been two seconds away from killing Xander only a few hours ago and that Willow doesn’t have Slayer strength. As much as his feelings for Willow are a chaotic jumble of anger at her rejection of his friendship and… other things he’d rather not think about, he’s not going to let her get killed by a rogue Slayer. Even if she’s still being petulant and childish and refusing to even look at him.  
  
As Willow and Xander get up to follow Buffy’s orders, Angel chimes in. “I’ll go with them. They’ll need my help if they find her.”  
  
Buffy gives him a grateful smile, clearly not noticing that Willow looks stricken. Angel does, though; he’s irritated and, yes, angry. Would she rather be killed than accept his help? Because Faith is unstable, high as a kite on blood and adrenaline, and she’d snap Willow’s neck just to watch the light go out of her eyes. No, Angel can’t let that happen.  
  
The dirty look Xander gives him doesn’t faze him in the least. It’s a given, the boy’s obvious resentment, and if that look had _not_ crossed his visage, Angel would have known for a fact that an attempted staking was imminent. Xander’s not sly, though he certainly thinks he is.   
  
Out into the night they go. For a few moments, silence reigns. Had Willow been the one to break it… but no, it’s Xander. “You know, Willow and I really don’t need you to babysit us. Why don’t you go check the airport or something?”  
  
Really? In addition to his ludicrous belief that he and Willow are a match for Faith, there’s the idiocy of thinking Faith would go anywhere near the airport. Sure, she could easily find a way around the need for a plane ticket, but she’s smart enough to know that the Council is full of stodgy, monied types who think the only way to get anywhere is by air. They have lookouts at every airfield she could get to, he’s sure. Now the Greyhound terminal might be another matter, but somehow… no, he doesn’t think she’ll go there either. Call it a hunch.  
  
He laughs openly at Xander’s foolishness, bringing up some even more jaw-dropping recent stupidity on the boy’s part. “Yeah. Because you really know how to handle Faith by yourself. Was that what you were doing back at the motel?”  
  
A jaw actually does drop, but it’s Willow’s. “You were at the motel with Faith?” Seems no one told her. Her taste in friends and understanding of what the word ‘friendship’ means are appalling.   
  
He’s about to say something, but Xander immediately reacts to Willow with the defensiveness which is the hallmark of folly caught out. “I was trying to reason with her.”  
  
“After Buffy told you not to?”   
  
With those words, Xander’s back is up more than ever. “You know, Buffy’s not the boss of me. And she’s not always right.”   
  
Were it anyone but that clownish oaf, Angel might sympathize – even agree that being expected to kowtow to Buffy as though she were an all-knowing parental figure is unreasonable. But considering the source… besides, this is an opening, a small one, but still an opening where he might show Willow which of her companions is the one she should value. “Yeah, because you were doing such a great job of ‘reasoning’,” he makes an air quote gesture to emphasize his point, “with Faith. Another minute of that reasoning and Willow and I would be searching for her by ourselves.”  
  
“I’ll have you know I had her right where I wanted her.”   
  
The attempt at bravado leaves Angel incredulous… and nearly doubled over in mirth. “And here I had you pegged as more of a vanilla kind of guy. Gee, Xander, I had no idea you were into breath play.”   
  
Willow’s eyes… it takes a moment but then they go wide. Clearly she knows what he means, though her words are addressed to her one-time paramour. “She was choking you?” There are a range of emotions flickering across that expressive face, not the least of which is hurt. It’s obvious that she doesn’t appreciate how very much was being hidden from her in the darkness where she was kept.  
  
Another chance, and Angel takes the opportunity to say what he’d wanted to a moment ago, before Xander cut him off. “No one told you?” He projects innocence and sympathy, hoping she’ll see…  
  
But he’s reckoned without her obstinacy, her stubborn determination to believe in her so-called friends, no matter what, and to reject any overture of Angel’s. She immediately springs to the defense of the very people who treat her most unjustly. “A lot’s been happening,” she says with childish pugnacity, “Everyone’s been busy with important things.”  
  
Refusing to rise to the bait – he should have expected her reaction – Angel maintains a sympathetic expression, even as Xander shifts the focus back to himself. “I’m sorry, Will. I should have told you. It’s just…”  
  
Angel’s not having it and he interrupts with “You were embarrassed because you did something stupid? I’d think you’d be over that by now, what with your track record.”  
  
If he’d been hoping for a surreptitious hint of amusement from Willow, he’s sorely disappointed. She glares at him – glares! – the way she did so long ago in the high school library when she upbraided him for not taking Buffy out for coffee. Then her expression goes soft and caring as she turns to Xander. He can remember her looking kindly at _him_ and he feels more bereft than ever.  
  
“It’s okay. I get it. Things got kinda crazy.” That statement is followed by her embracing Xander and Angel’s bones ache with anger and envy.  
  
The boy thanks her – he at least has that much sense – and then turns to Angel, giving him his own version of the glare he just received from Willow before speaking to him as if he hadn’t initiated this whole ridiculous interlude. “We should get back to hunting for Faith. There’s no telling what she’ll do now and...”   
  
“We need to stop her before she does it,” Willow finishes for Xander, her tone cheery and… Angel wants to believe conciliatory. Is she softening toward him?  
  
Now isn’t the time, he decides. But as he leads the way out of the cozy, middle class section of Sunnydale which is the natural habitat of these two, he realizes that Willow has told no one about their recent falling out, because if she had told anyone, it would have been Xander. There are many ways to see that, he supposes, but he chooses to regard it as another hopeful sign, one that means that, deep down, she knows the truth and is leaving the door open for him to come back into her life.  
  
The buildings are becoming more run down and the sound from the businesses grows ever more raucous. There are no espresso bars or cheery cafes, no sterile little teen clubs pretending to be edgy – this is a world of dimly lit diners, tattoo artists with an ex-con-heavy clientele, and taverns where the bartenders would never dare to water down the drinks. This is a world where Faith blends in as perfectly as Willow stands out. Observing his fair companion in this milieu only makes her more enthralling, but for all that she’s a bit of a distraction, his natural ability to sense the presence of a Slayer is the joker in the deck that ensures Faith won’t get away, no matter how intriguing it is to see Willow’s innocence displayed against a background of seedy degradation.   
Her eyes are saucer-wide as they make their way through a myriad of the sort of places that were called gin joints and dives once upon a time, but in this brave new egalitarian world, he supposes it’s not politically correct to openly differentiate them from their tonier brethren, even if the privileged still look down their noses at those who congregate here.  
  
For a time it seemed that there were an infinite number of these hole-in-the-wall drinking establishments, but there aren’t and they have finally scoured the last of them. Faith is nowhere to be found. Clearly, she’s smart enough to avoid anywhere people might think of looking for her. Maybe she’s already hitched a ride out of town; she’s a trucker’s wet dream, so she’d have no shortage of eager volunteers willing to give her any sort of ride she wanted… and if she _didn’t_ want, they’d realize their mistake. It’s all academic. There’s nothing to do but call in and let Giles know their search has been fruitless.   
  
This place is easily the sleaziest and most disreputable of all the bars they’ve inspected, so Angel makes sure that even Xander is close on his heels as he heads to the payphone in the back. He drops some coins in the slot, dials the familiar number, and says, “Giles? Yeah. We haven’t…” He’s immediately cut off by news from the man on the other end of the line. “Oh. Buffy found her?” That’s likely a good thing and he listens as he gets the gist of the action related to him. Down by the docks. Fight with vampires. Faith saved Buffy. The two girls are on their way back to Faith’s motel. That last is hardly the way Angel would have played it, but Buffy – as Willow seems far too happy to accept – is in charge.   
  
Hanging up the phone after assuring the man he’ll see to it that Xander and Willow get home safely – and the fact that was in doubt makes Angel’s fangs itch – he turns around… just as a fight breaks out.  
  
It’s a bit more than the typical barroom brawl; weapons have been produced and he smells genuine fear in the air from the type of people who don’t generally exude it. Best to get out of there. So he hustles his companions out the back door, into an alley almost as filthy as the ones in which he lived back in New York.  
  
Almost.  
  
The memories are there now, crawling through his brain like the rats on which he’d fed. Once, he’d tried… but Buffy hadn’t wanted to hear about it, shuddering in revulsion and offering up platitudes about how he was ‘safe’ now. He wishes he could sit with Willow by the fire, hold her hand, tell her what it was like. She’d listen, she’d understand, and she wouldn’t make him feel guilty for talking about it. Without thinking, he takes her arm to lead her out of this disgusting place. She shivers. Telling himself that it’s not because she fears him, he says “You’re cold” and takes off his leather jacket, putting it over her shoulders, barely able to stop his hands from lingering as he does so. He hadn’t realized the effect an opportunity for contact would have.  
  
Perhaps it’s fortunate that Xander’s voice is soon heard, creating a distraction. “So, what happened with Faith?”  
  
There’s something in the boy’s voice… Biting his tongue to stifle the laughter works, but just barely. Good God, Xander actually wants a second roll in the sheets with the girl. And here he’d thought _women_ were the ones who were ridiculously sentimental about their ‘first.’  
  
“Buffy tracked her down and everything seems to be copacetic. That’s all I know.” For the most part, that was true.   
  
Then Xander proves his hypothesis correct. “Maybe we should stop by the library.” At the end of that sentence, Angel knows he hears ‘and see if Faith is horny.’  
  
Xander’s obvious desire to add another two minutes onto his sexual history is not of the least interest to him, however, and besides, Faith is nowhere near the library, not that Angel’s going to mention that. Instead he merely says “Giles told me to get you two home. I’m sure you’ll get all the details tomorrow” in a tone that brooks no argument, though the boy does mumble a few words under his breath. It doesn’t faze Angel a bit. Because it’s just occurred to him that their route takes them to Xander’s house first.  
  
That means he’s going to be alone with Willow soon.  
  
The rest of the surprisingly short walk is made in silence and Xander scuttles into his house as fast as he can, not even looking back at Willow, who then startles Angel by handing him his jacket with a curt “I can make it from here” and then walking away at a rapid clip.  
  
No. That’s not allowed. Without taking the time to put on his jacket, he catches up to her in less than a second, grabbing her by the arm and turning her to face him. Amazingly, she’s not quailing in the face of his wrath. “Look,” she says in an antagonistic tone, “I told you before that I don’t want to talk to you or have anything to do with you, so if you feel like you have to follow me home to make sure I get there safely, okay, but do it from a distance. I’m not spending another minute with you.”  
  
He can feel his eyes go gold for a split second, but all he says is “We’re going to talk.” Then, hand still on her arm, he escorts her back to her house. Well, ‘escorts’ might be a bit of a polite term given the pace he sets and the fact that he doesn’t give her the opportunity to argue, but it’s not as if he’s abusing or kidnapping her – she was headed back to the very house at which they’ve just arrived.  
  
Her living room is a caricature of middle class hominess, as false and empty as a magazine photograph, but it’s as good a place as any for them to talk, so he hangs up his jacket on the coat rack in the entry and follows her. “W-what do you want to talk about?”  
  
The stammer won’t do. It’s clear he’s played this wrong. The last thing he wants is for her to fear him – not to this degree at any rate. Schooling his voice and manner into gentleness, he approaches her and says, “You don’t need to be afraid of me.” Paradoxically, he realizes that he’s hemmed her in. Guess he can’t help it. He’s a predator and his nature will out.   
  
“I’m not afraid of you.” But when he reaches out and touches her cheek, the flinch he encounters gives the lie to her statement.   
  
His heart aches… yes, his heart. Things are changing – or maybe he’s just really seeing at last. “I’m your friend.”  
  
Defiance, it’s a quality in her that used to charm him, but not after tonight. “You’re not my friend. My friends don’t go out of their way to insult me and make me feel bad, which you did. Ergo, you are not my friend.”  
  
This insistence of hers on believing that indifference and complacency are the qualities of real friends… “A true friend wouldn’t stand by and watch you get mistreated. A friend would tell you when they see that, and that’s what I did. If you’d just open your eyes…” As he speaks, he moves, hemming her in tighter, cutting off any path of escape.  
  
“I love Oz. And he loves me.”  
  
He knew she would bring up her furry swain – the one he hasn’t seen in a couple of days, come to think of it. “He’s not here.”   
  
Of course Willow defends him. “He has a gig, okay? It’s important.”  
  
It’s not the first time tonight Angel has held back laughter. “More important to him than you are.” It’s not a question; it’s a bald statement of fact.  
  
“You don’t know him and you don’t know me, and I’d really appreciate it if…” Just as she’s finishing her sentence, he slides forward, trapping her against the fireplace. The blinders are off and instinct takes over. He thinks she sees because her voice goes quavering and desperate. “Can you please leave?”  
  
He smiles and shakes his head, closing the gap between them. “You can do so much better.” Putting his hand on her waist, he feels the heat of her skin through the thin, cheap sweater. She should be wearing silk and cashmere, not this manmade joke of a fabric that seems to mock the softness of the skin beneath it.   
  
“I love him,” she says, but the words sound faint and far away, lost as Angel is consumed by feelings he doesn’t understand but that he accepts all the same. She will too. She’ll have to.  
  
He leans in… and kisses her.  
  
At first he tries to be gentle, but desire takes over and so does the need to possess. His kiss grows aggressive and demanding as he holds her close, intent on overcoming her resistance.  
  
The taste of her is sublime as his tongue plunders her mouth, preventing her from protesting; he can’t stop his body from responding, and he hardens, wanting to take her even as he knows he can’t, but the temptation is overwhelming as she succumbs, going pliant and willing in his arms.  
  
God, this is so close, almost too close, to perfect… but then there’s the shock of pain as her foot comes down hard on his. “Ow!” he cries, more startled than injured, but she’s distracted him and his hold on her slips. Too late he realizes what she’s doing. She’s already dashed past him and up the stairs to her room, the door closing hard behind her, and then she calls out, “I’m armed and I’ll call Buffy if you don’t leave right this second!”  
  
Damn her! His true face emerges and he has to stop himself before he smashes every stick of furniture in the room. Instead, he brings himself as much under control as he can and contents himself with slamming the front door as he storms out of her house.  
  
He wants to hate her and maybe he does, but his obsession? His desire? None of that has changed.   
  
Is she on the phone right now, calling Buffy? No, she’s not. He knows she’s not. The last thing she’d ever do is tell Buffy something that might hurt her. He heads home, wondering what he’s going to do now… whatever it is, it’s going to put him back in control. Because it’s clear that, left to her own devices, Willow will never do what’s best for her.  
  
Willow will have to give in. He’s not going to give her a choice, never again.  
  
She’s his.  
  
  
  
To be continued…


	13. Knowledge is Powerless

Knowledge is Powerless  
  
  
  
 _”Hey, Rosenberg? What the hell are you doing here? You need to go home and write that history report. If I flunk that class, you’re in big trouble with Snyder. ‘Til we graduate? I own your ass.”_  
  
Percy’s words ring in Willow’s ears as she trudges listlessly through the dark streets of Sunnydale on her way home. The truth is that she finished the report during lunch, but she hadn’t felt like telling him that and making him even more aware of the gap in their intelligence and academic capability. Not like the work had been challenging, well, except for dumbing it down to a level where it was believable for him to have written it. But she managed and completed her own assignments as well. Take that, stupid jock.  
  
Oh yeah, Willow Rosenberg, rebel extraordinaire. More like eternal doormat. Because it’s not like she’d emitted a peep of protest when Snyder had ordered her to do Percy’s work. And as for her response to Buffy and Xander dubbing her ‘Old Reliable’? Yeah, the storming off had been so effective that she’d actually had to tell Buffy that was what she was doing. Her greatest triumph in the whole day was telling Cordelia’s new buddy Anya that she was too busy doing other people’s homework to help her do a spell. Wow. That’s the way to stand up for yourself. But at least she _had_ said no because something tells her it would have been a dumb thing to do. Maybe her recent experience with supposed good-guys, hidden agendas, and duplicity has turned her paranoia meter up to high, but she’s pretty sure it had probably been a set-up for a prank or something. Cordelia is the queen of holding grudges.  
  
After the humiliation of her horrible day, she’d thought maybe pretending to have blown off her duties to party might make her friends see her as something other than a reliable dog-geyser-person. But no suitably shocked Buffy and Xander waited for her in the Bronze, just Percy: he of the brawny brainlessness and supreme confidence in his ascendency over her. He’s right, too.  
  
She’s a mouse.  
  
But at least a mouse always has somewhere to hide, right?  
  
It’s probably better that she didn’t find her friends after all, because now isn’t the best time to be out with them in a place where a certain vampire she doesn’t want to think about might be and she’s still surprised she can look at Buffy without betraying herself.  
  
The truth is she’s absolutely sure she should have just stayed home; it’s just that a day of being belittled and used… yeah, maybe she let her understandable frustration with the fact that even Anya, some girl she’d never met before this morning, thinks she’s a pathetic loser whose only purpose is to be manipulated into doing her bidding spur her into an ill-considered and reckless course of action.  
  
Speaking of ill-considered and reckless, there’s this shortcut she’s taking through a very deserted and extremely dark alley.  
  
“Willow Rosenberg.” Oh god. Not so deserted anymore and the voice she just heard does not belong to a nice person. She can just tell. Don’t turn around. Whatever you do, don’t turn around.  
  
She turns around.  
  
Two very large vampires in full game face are standing there.  
  
Why is it that she can’t go anywhere anymore without being menaced by vampires?  
  
What’s worse is that she has a feeling that these guys might be less well-intentioned than Angel.  
  
They separate, hemming her in and cutting off even the most hypothetical path of escape. This is so much like what Angel did the other night in her living room and she knows more surely than ever that he’s nowhere near as human as he likes to pretend. Or to put it in a way even Percy would understand – if he knew about vampires, anyway – soul, schmoul.  
  
Are these the last thoughts she’s ever going to have? Shouldn’t she be thinking about the things she’ll miss? Like Oz. She never even got to make love to him – or to anyone for that matter.  
  
It’s only when she feels the alley wall against her that she realizes she’s been backing up. The vampires chuckle and the ugliest one sneers. “Can’t believe he considers this little girl a threat. She’s barely a mouthful.”  
  
Okay, glossing over the ‘little girl’ pejorative, to which she really shouldn’t waste her last few seconds of life taking umbrage, who is the ‘he’ who considers her a threat? Because…  
  
Oh god. “The Mayor?” she says, cursing herself for saying it out loud. Congratulations on signing your own death warrant. She probably hadn’t stood a chance anyway, though, so once again, let’s not waste these last moments on depressing thoughts. Instead, she tries to reminisce fondly about her parents. Surely there’s one warm, fuzzy memory she can conjure up to set the tone for a suitably sentimental end.  
  
It’s hard to think at all with two vampires inching closer, smiling in a way that has nothing to do with friendliness. Is it strange that she wishes they’d just get it over with? One of them chuckles again. “You’re a clever one, aren’t you? I’ve always had a thing for the smart girls.” Somehow that doesn’t seem anything like a compliment and her feelings are confirmed when her ‘admirer’ turns to his friend and asks, “Think we could have a little fun with her first?”  
  
All right. That’s it. What is with it vampires wanting to force themselves on her? With the kind of reckless courage she once deployed successfully against another vampire – albeit a drunk one – she stands straight, head held high, and says, “Hey! If you want to kill me, that’s one thing, but this other stuff? I think emphatically not!”  
  
But before she has the chance to see if her bravado registered at all, there’s a new player in the game, one who’s announced by a mirthless chuckle from the shadows. “What have we here?”  
  
This was the only circumstance under which she could possibly be glad to see… “Angel.”  
  
He doesn’t acknowledge her, instead addressing the two vampires – his own kind. “You’re obviously too young to be out here on your own, boys. You need to go back to your sire, learn some manners. Don’t you know better than to touch someone else’s property?”  
  
When – and if – this is over and she’s still alive, she fully intends to give Angel a piece of her mind for calling her his property, but right now she keeps her mouth shut and hangs back against the wall while the vampires go Neanderthal and women’s rights are set back generations.  
  
Gloria Steinem would do the exact same thing if there were vampires involved and so would Rebecca Walker. Even Andrea Dworkin would.  
  
All right, maybe not Andrea Dworkin.  
  
It’s amazing how wacky her thoughts become when she’s in danger, isn’t it?  
  
She watches as the drama plays out before her.  
  
“You haven’t marked her. And anyway, no matter who she belongs to, she’s been sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong. We were sent to teach her a lesson. Permanently.”  
  
Who writes their dialogue? She’d mock them except for the fact that this isn’t some cheesy late-night movie on cable. No, it’s her real life and it’s nowhere near as funny as it would be if she were watching it with Xander and Buffy and a big bowl of popcorn.  
  
Angel walks up to her and strokes her cheek; she can’t help shuddering. “I’ve marked you, haven’t I, baby?”  
  
Before she can answer, his face changes and he whips around. “You want some fun?” he growls through the fangs she can still see, even though his back is to her. “Let’s play.”  
  
Okay, the ‘baby’ business was his way of distracting them while he prepared to attack. That’s… well, not _okay_ okay, but okay… sort of. Except…  
  
She still finds him creepy and disturbing even if he is fighting to save her life right now. Oh, and winning – at least half, since one of the vampires just became a cloud of dust. Now he’s got the second one on the ground, stake poised at his heart. “What do you want with her?”  
  
Oh goody. This is kind of like school because Willow knows the answer to this one. “Umm… I think they work for the Mayor,” she says, realizing she almost raised her hand as she spoke. Really? Maybe there’s a good reason people think she’s a hopeless nerd.  
  
“Is that right?” Angel asks the creature beneath him.  
  
“I’m not telling you anything.” Angel presses against the guy’s neck and Willow hears a slight popping sound and all defiance vanishes. “Okay, okay. The girl’s right. The Mayor sent us.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“He said she’s too nosy.” Another popping sound. “Stop. I swear that’s all I know. I’m just muscle, okay?” Angel eases up and Willow can see his face shift back to human. The other vampire seems to relax, almost breathes a sigh of relief. “So, can I go now? I’ll leave town. I swear.”  
  
Angel smiles and nods. “Sure. You can go.” Wow, that’s unexpectedly merciful. Willow feels oddly comforted by it – well, except for the part about turning a soulless vampire who was going to kill her loose on another town – but then…  
  
He twists and his stake plunges home. Seconds later, all that remains of the second vampire is another pile of dust. Willow stares as he gets up and shrugs. “I said he could go. I never said where. Hell seemed fitting.”  
  
All she can do is keep staring at the dust; somehow she thinks she can still see the look of shock and betrayal on that vampire’s face as Angel staked him. Is that how she looked when Angel kissed her? Probably, huh? But she doesn’t say anything about that. She has to admit that she’s terrified of upsetting him. Something about him is more demonic now than even when he didn’t have a soul and she’s fighting to keep from shaking. “T-thanks,” she says, “I guess I should… ummm… go home now. Yeah. Home.” She hurries out of the alley. It would be too much to hope that Angel not follow her and of course he does, but maybe he’ll just keep watch as she makes her way back to her house.  
  
Or not. Because now his hand is on her arm. Not the first time, that’s for sure. This time, though, his grip is extra tight and he’s pulling her down the street. It doesn’t take long to realize they aren’t heading toward her house. “Where…?” she gasps out, nearly panting as she struggles to keep up with him and not wind up dragged along the pavement.  
  
“My place. We need to talk.” Does he know she did the uninvite spell? She has a hunch that he does and it gives her chills as she wonders how he found out. Had he entered her house before that? Without her being there? Or when she was sleeping? Did he try again only to find the way barred?  
  
But she doesn’t ask – she wouldn’t ask even if she wasn’t out of breath. Not like she wants to know the answers anyway.  
  
In moments, they’re at the mansion and she’s shaking. This is not a warm, cozy kind of home, though she figures demons aren’t much for Martha Stewart. A vision of Oz trying to make place card holders out of egg cups comes unbidden and maybe she’ll laugh later, but it isn’t as funny as it should be at the moment – probably because she can’t imagine laughing at anything in this cold, forbidding place.  
  
Angel unexpectedly gentles now that they’re inside, drawing her over by the hearth, where a fire blazes. “You’re cold,” he says, and she doesn’t contradict him. Then he takes a soft blanket from a chest and wraps it around her. “This place,” he says apologetically, “doesn’t have central heating.”  
  
It’s unsettling, this sudden and dramatic shift into solicitude; he seems to sense her unease. “I’m not going to hurt you.” He guides her to the couch. She sits and so does he – close, too close, but she doesn’t move. “Why would the Mayor want you dead?”  
  
Oh! They’re going to talk about what just happened in the alley. Good. That’s good. Willow can handle that. “I’ve been trying to hack into his files.” You know there’s something… she hadn’t thought about it back in the alley, but…  
  
Angel interrupts her train of thought. “Is there a way for him to be able to tell? I don’t know much about computers.” Again, the shift in manner is unsettling but she pushes it to the back of her mind because…  
  
“No. I know what I’m doing. He wouldn’t know unless…”  
  
Then Angel finishes the track for that train of thought of hers. “Unless someone told him.”  
  
Her eyes are wide now as she wonders… and it doesn’t take her long to think of a suspect. Because only one person who isn’t her close friend knows what she’s been trying to do. “I guess… I think it’s Faith. She saw me this morning. Asked what I was doing.” Her emotions are high and she stands up, casting off the blanket. “I can’t believe I was so stupid. There’s no way there’s anything in those files now. I talk too much.”  
  
A second later, Angel is on his feet as well, hands on her shoulders. “It’s not your fault. Buffy insisted on trying to bring her back into the fold. You were just going along. Besides, I don’t think any of us could have predicted she’d go this far. Finch? That was an accident. Working for the Mayor? That’s a decision she made with her eyes wide open. She had a choice of two roads, and she’s taking the one to Eviltown. She doesn’t even want to find her way home.”  
  
“What do we do?” Willow tries not to notice the way Angel’s hands are massaging, almost caressing her shoulders, hoping that maybe the other night was just Hellmouth wackiness that he’s totally forgotten – like when Xander was possessed by the hyena.  
  
She hopes all the nights have been.  
  
“Tomorrow we tell Buffy and Giles.”  
  
That makes sense, she guesses, though a part of her wonders why he isn’t suggesting they do it tonight. She doesn’t ask. Instead she just says “Okay” and wishes she couldn’t feel the touch of his hands through her whole body. “I have to go,” she blurts out. “Principal Snyder’s making me do this guy’s homework and I should…” Her voice trails off as Angel’s stare becomes…  
  
Hungry. She knows the word for it now.  
  
“I have to go.” With repetition, the words become a whimper. She’s lying about the reason, but one thing is true – she has to go.  
  
He shakes his head and there’s a smirk she tries and fails to make herself believe it’s a smile, playing at the corners of his mouth. “You don’t have to do anything.” What does he mean by that? There’s no way he knows that she already did Percy’s report and anyway, his expression doesn’t correspond with that interpretation.  
  
Trying to back away is useless; Angel’s grip has tightened. “W-what do you mean?” She stuttered. Oh god. He’ll know she’s afraid of him. Of course, he probably already did, what with the super vamp senses and all.  
  
Her question doesn’t get an answer and his face is getting closer. Say something, something that will make this stop – a distraction. “Umm… Thank you!” she says, a bit too loudly and brightly, but it works, so yay for Willow. “I forgot to say that, or say it enough. I would have been killed by those vamps if you hadn’t shown up, so thanks.”  
  
There’s that shake of the head again and the soft, gentle voice she knows doesn’t mean what it should. “You don’t need to be afraid of me.”  
  
She leans back, away from him. “I… What happened the other night? It can’t happen again, okay?” He says nothing and she repeats her plea. “Okay?”  
  
“Just a kiss,” he says softly, but he’s not forcing it on her, just waiting. However, his hold on her doesn’t loosen and she has the unsettling feeling she’s being asked to pay a toll.  
  
“If I…?” She can’t finish the question, but he knows what she’s asking; she sees that in the half-smile creeping up one side of that mouth.  
  
“I’ll take you home.” Then his lips descend.  
  
It’s nowhere near as violent as the last time he kissed her, but Willow can’t say it’s any more pleasurable… at least not at first. But it goes on and his arms slip around her and… oh god, she hates herself, but it’s not totally horrible and loathsome anymore. She closes her eyes and tries to picture Oz’s face, but it’s gone, as if it was never there, and she feels herself getting lost as she moans into Angel’s mouth  
  
At that very moment, the kiss ends.  
  
Before she knows it, they are out the door and headed towards her house, silently and as if nothing just happened between them, and if she thought she hated herself before, she _really_ hates herself now as she wonders: Was it me? Am I a really bad kisser or something? Why doesn’t he…?  
  
Stop it! She should be _glad_ if he didn’t like it. Oz has never had any complaints. Well, except that he doesn’t want to sleep with her, and he’s always gone, and… It takes all the conscious effort she can muster not to put her hands over her ears and scream in an attempt to drown out all her horrible, self-hating thoughts.  
  
Good thing it’s a short walk, huh? Here they are. He walks her up to her front door and watches as she unlocks it.  
  
Before she can say a word to him, he’s gone.  
  
All she can do to hold herself together is remember that Percy’s report is finished and at least she’s not dead. Maybe it’s not enough, but it will have to do. Because she can’t fall apart.  
  
The Mayor, after all, apparently has Psycho the Slayer on his side, and there are more important things to worry about than what happened tonight with Angel.  
  
Tomorrow she might be able to keep things in the proper perspective.  
  
Not now, though. Now she just goes up to her room, stares at the picture by her bed, the one of her and Oz, and wonders how everything went so wrong.  
  
  
  
To be continued…


	14. I Teach You the Superman

I Teach You the Superman  
  
  
It’s another restless night, not that he’s surprised, but he is annoyed by it. Being bested by some naïve slip of a girl – that’s not exactly a sop to his demonly ego.   
  
Having her in his arms… he hadn’t felt human at all, but there’d been a strange sort of dark peace which had stolen over him for that brief moment, the banking of storms and the repose of tigers.  
  
Nothing could have made that kiss more distinct from any he’s shared with Buffy. It’s as if he’d been some different creature back when he’d so lost himself that his soul had been torn anew from him. As much as he has spent most of his days since returning from Hell trying to believe that he came home the same, that he _is_ the same… No, he didn’t and no, he’s not.  
  
If he were the same, he’d be sitting in the chair before the fire, a volume of Sartre, spine-bent and open in his lap, brooding about when and why and how this change had occurred. Now? Now he thinks there’s something to be said for his demon’s disinterest in motives and meanings. What is, is. Nothing is going to change it. He’s not going to close his eyes and wake up bright with love for his shining, golden Slayer. The feelings which consume him now… they’re for a very different girl.  
  
Ah, those feelings. Mixed in with what he has no interest in defining is something too simple to avoid calling by its proper name – rage. The pressure of her foot coming down on his still throbs in his flesh and her rejection stings all the more. There’s a connection between them, he’s felt it since his return, and her stubborn refusal to accept it rankles. The taste of her lingers on his lips and he can’t believe she doesn’t feel it. This isn’t some one-sided calf-love and he’s no foolish teenage swain. When his soul passed through her, it carried a piece of her with it into him… and it left a piece of itself behind.  
  
She’s his.  
  
Where does that leave Buffy? In the past. In the long-gone past. And while he knows the distance ever-widening between them is hurting her, there’s nothing he can do about it. Pretending it isn’t there doesn’t suit him in the slightest and explaining it would hurt her even more. She’s the Slayer and she’s tough, so she’ll handle it. She has her friends, her Watcher, and her duty to fill the void, not to mention – thanks to her taste in dress, or _un_ dress, as it were – the lust of every other male in a two hundred mile radius. So yes, perhaps he’s a cynic or heartless or both, but he’s pretty sure she’ll be just fine.  
  
His ego isn’t the least bit wounded by that, or if it is, the cut isn’t deep enough to bleed.  
  
He looks around his dismal surroundings with a baleful eye. What was he thinking when he chose this place? Is there a single demonic cliché absent? Not that he’s aware. Oh how he longs for something more modern, warmer, with comfortable chairs and luxurious fabrics. Someplace masculine and imposing in a more virile fashion than crumbling stone and a ponderous staircase will ever afford.   
  
What would it be like, living in a place like that? A place more conducive to indulgence than to brooding? He closes his eyes and pictures himself seated in a large leather chair, Mozart playing softly on an unseen stereo, a glass of fine brandy on the table beside him…  
  
… Willow on her knees before him, his hands on the back of her head as she begs his forgiveness by using her mouth far more pleasurably than for speech.  
  
Now there’s a fantasy he wishes he could make real.   
  
Why can’t he? He knows that perfect happiness would cost him his soul and he’s not inclined to suffer that fate again, but there’s nothing in what he feels for Willow that is anything like that sense of sweet humanity he’d felt with Buffy. It makes no sense that he’s supposed to be denied every pleasure of the flesh. After all, he’d lain with Darla after… But maybe that was an aberration or he’d been so degraded and miserable then that nothing could have lifted him high enough for those talons to reach his soul.  
  
Time to get out of here. He needs a walk to clear his head and get himself under control.   
  
It shouldn’t surprise him that his feet carry him swiftly in the direction of The Bronze. He could tell himself it’s because it’s a prime hunting ground for fledges and minions looking for a quick meal and heedless of the presence of the Slayer and her friends, but the truth is that he’s looking for Willow. Will she be on Oz’s arm tonight?   
  
What is it like between them? There can’t be passion, not when the tick-bearing little cur seems to be doing everything in his power to avoid consummating their union.  
  
Does _he_ know? That thought has never occurred to Angel before, but he wonders now – does Oz sense that another, stronger demon has a far greater claim to Willow than he does? Is that what keeps his trousers zipped?  
  
He’s distracted from his thoughts by the sound of something happening in an alley. It’s Willow… and she’s not alone… or safe.  
  
There are two vampires toying with her and it makes Angel’s demon roar within him, especially when he hears what one of them has to say. “You’re a clever one, aren’t you? I’ve always had a thing for the smart girls.” Then he turns to his companion and adds, “Think we could have a little fun with her first?”  
  
Willow’s fatalistic pluck is adorable as she responds, “Hey! If you want to kill me, that’s one thing, but this other stuff? I think emphatically not!” Angel can’t help but chuckle.  
  
The vampires turn away from their would-be prey. He’s been heard – and noticed. Good. It’s the right time for him to intervene. “What have we here?”  
  
Well, for once Willow seems properly glad to see him. “Angel.”  
  
He ignores her, focusing on the two worthless lunkheads who’ve had the temerity to transgress against him. “You’re obviously too young to be out here on your own, boys. You need to go back to your sire, learn some manners. Don’t you know better than to touch someone else’s property?”  
  
Of course, for a brief second, he notes a flash of annoyance cross Willow’s face. She knows nothing of demons, does she? If she takes such offense at ownership, she should never have set a single dainty foot into his world, because it’s too late now. The only sort of feminism where he comes from is practiced by such as Darla… and even she wanted to be possessed. Ms. Magazine is on no one’s coffee table here.  
  
But then, one who should know better – the more foolhardy of these lumbering oafs – has the gall to argue with his claim. “You haven’t marked her. And anyway, no matter who she belongs to, she’s been sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong. We were sent to teach her a lesson. Permanently.”  
  
The creature’s dialogue is straight from a bad B-movie, but Angel’s not in the mood to humour him with amusement. Instead, he takes the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, demonstrating his authority to both the vampires and Willow. He approaches her, moving in close and then stroking her cheek, finding some consolation in the fact that she knows enough not to back away. “I’ve marked you, haven’t I, baby?”  
  
She almost nodded, but now isn’t the time to savour that small victory. Instead, he whips around to face her attackers, his true face emerging from beneath the human mask, a stake in his hand. “You want some fun? Let’s play.”  
  
He was right; they’re useless and the fight – such as it is – barely merits the name. In five seconds, he has one staked and the second on the ground, the same stake that sent his companion back to dust poised at his heart. “What do you want with her?”  
  
To his surprise, Willow’s the one who answers his question, her voice that of the eager schoolgirl, desperate to please her teacher. It almost makes him hard. “Umm… I think they work for the Mayor.”  
  
Willing his body into submission, he stays focused on his captive. “Is that right?”  
  
Naturally, the idiot beneath him is full of false bravado. “I’m not telling you anything.” Angel decides to test his resolve. Pressure applied to the thug’s neck yields a satisfying pop and an amending whine of “Okay, okay. The girl’s right. The Mayor sent us.”  
  
He’d say ‘I told you so’, but there’s something unsatisfying about saying it to oneself, so he contents himself with further interrogation. “Why?”  
  
“He said she’s too nosy.” That’s it? Really? More pressure and another popping sound with an accompanying grimace of severe agony. Good. “Stop. I swear that’s all I know. I’m just muscle, okay?” That last is the most honest the creature has been in all his short unlife, so Angel rewards him with a cessation of pressure and the comforting slide into place of his human mask. It works. The look of hope that crosses the other vampire’s face is almost pathetic. “So, can I go now? I’ll leave town. I swear.”  
  
Angel smiles and nods as he makes to get up off the creature… but instead he twists and his stake hits its mark. Then he gets to his feet, brushing the dust from his clothes, and realizes that Willow is staring at him, her expression unreadable. She almost seems… upset about what he’s done. He decides to explain. “I said he could go. I never said where. Hell seemed fitting.”  
  
It doesn’t seem to help. She looks terrified and while at first that bothers him, a moment passes and he thinks maybe it’s a good thing. There are things she needs to learn and there’s no time like the present. Still, he doesn’t have the advantage here and that’s clear when she says, her voice catching on the first word, “T-thanks. I guess I should… ummm… go home now. Yeah. Home.” And with that, she hurries out of the alley.  
  
He follows and quickly grabs her arm. She’s not getting away, no matter how hard she stomps her foot this time. Without a word, he changes her course and hurries her to a location where he _will_ have the advantage. “Where…?” she gasps, nearly panting at the brisk pace he’s set.  
  
“My place. We need to talk.” He’s well aware she performed that uninvite spell again, though he’s sure he could get her to break it again tonight, but that’s not his reason for taking her to his house. She’ll be off balance on his turf – and there’s less likelihood of a repeat of the recent debacle.  
  
Soon enough, they’re inside the mansion, though it’s colder inside than out, despite the roaring fire in the fireplace. She notices – and more than that, he sees her eyes dart around, assessing this place the way he had earlier. He wishes he could transform it into the study of his fancy. Since he can’t, he compensates for the austerity of his front room by assuming a gentle tone and solicitous manner. “You’re cold,” he says, not inaccurately, though he knows her tremors aren’t entirely due to the temperature. Taking a soft blanket from the chest by the hearth, he wraps it around her. “This place doesn’t have central heating.” She’s unsettled by his shift in manner. Good. That’s as it should be.  
  
As he guides her to the couch, he says “I’m not going to hurt you.” Then he seats them both, careful to be just this side of invading what she’d call her personal space. She doesn’t move away. He gives no indication that he notices, though inside he’s crowing. Another shift is called for. “Why would the Mayor want you dead?” He is, after all, genuinely curious about that. The more he thinks about it, the more anxious and angry he grows.  
  
She seems to ponder the question for a moment. Finally, she says, “I’ve been trying to hack into his files.”  
  
That doesn’t surprise him, but… “Is there a way for him to be able to tell?” He further confesses, “I don’t know much about computers.” Not that she was unaware of that fact. Still, his question seems to have sparked something.  
  
“No. I know what I’m doing. He wouldn’t know unless…”  
  
He knows exactly what she’s going to say next and he gets there first. “Unless someone told him.” There’s someone who’s going to be paying the same total as those two muscular morons in the alley when Angel finds them.   
  
It won’t take nearly as long as he thought it might since Willow seems to have done all the detective work already. “I guess… I think it’s Faith. She saw me this morning. Asked what I was doing.”  
  
That thrice-damned whore! But there’s no time to be distracted by his own rage because Willow has thrown off the blanket and is on her feet, clearly feeling something of a kind, but directed at the wrong target. “I can’t believe I was so stupid. There’s no way there’s anything in those files now. I talk too much.”  
  
Of all the wrongs he can credit to her account, this isn’t one, and he gets up as well, going to her and putting his hands on her shoulders. “It’s not your fault. Buffy insisted on trying to bring her back into the fold. You were just going along. Besides, I don’t think any of us could have predicted she’d go this far. Finch? That was an accident. Working for the Mayor? That’s a decision she made with her eyes wide open. She had a choice of two roads, and she’s taking the one to Eviltown. She doesn’t even want to find her way home.”   
  
He can’t stop his hands from caressing as he comforts, but again, she makes no move away from him, instead seeming to pretend that she doesn’t notice. “What do we do?”  
  
Oh how many answers there are to that, but he plays her game. “Tomorrow we tell Buffy and Giles.” His hands, however, stay where they are.   
  
“Okay.” She can’t keep up her charade any longer and he can feel her nerves jumping through her skin. “I have to go,” she suddenly offers. “Principal Snyder’s making me do this guy’s homework and I should…” His eyes capture hers and her voice trails off. No high school principal is going to usurp his command of her. Still, she struggles in her chains. “I have to go.”  
  
He smirks at her and shakes his head. “You don’t have to do anything.” That may be the boldest lie he’s ever told, but it’s true enough about her principal and whatever pustulent brat she’s expected to put her brain in service to.   
  
His hands cease their caress and his grip tightens. “W-what do you mean?” Oh how tantalizing that tremor in her voice is. It is the hymn calling both his soul and his demon together at the altar of a blasphemous church. Again he pictures her on her knees before him, worshipping him with her mouth, taking his body and his seed as the Eucharist.  
  
Without thinking, he leans down towards her and she immediately reacts. “Umm… Thank you!” she says in a bright, loud voice. “I forgot to say that, or say it enough. I would have been killed by those vamps if you hadn’t shown up, so thanks.”  
  
He realizes his mistake and quickly reins himself in, adopting that gentle, non-threatening manner which seems to unsettle her. “You don’t need to be afraid of me.” Another outright lie.  
  
This time, she bravely tries to face him down, leaning away from him as she says, “I… What happened the other night? It can’t happen again, okay?” He says nothing, so she repeats, “Okay?”  
  
His voice stays soft but he doesn’t let go as he answers, “Just a kiss,” knowing full well that there’s no simple bargains with demons – a lesson she will be learning… because a plan is forming. A plan not to win a battle, or even a war, but to conquer once and for all.   
  
“If I…?” She gazes into his eyes, a mute plea for mercy sounding in the silence. She’s held his soul within her. She should know better.   
  
A half-smile creeps up the side of his mouth as he answers, “I’ll take you home.” Then the time for words is over and his mouth descends on hers.  
  
But he’s not letting go and giving in to his lust this time. No, his kiss is a calculated thing, cold at the center, as he woos her with the tender ardency of a young lover, coaxing her to feel safe and cherished… to give in.  
  
Her moan tells him he’s won. At that precise moment, he ends their embrace and all but shoves her away from him. Then, without another word, he takes her arm and guides her home, acting as if they’ve shared nothing this night – or ever.  
  
There is sweet victory in the confusion and hurt pouring off of her, the insecurity he can almost smell. She’s wondering, isn’t she? Terrified that she’s inadequate, that her kiss is wanting in skill and that his desire for her has been chilled to ice by her failure as a woman.  
  
Let her stew in that, her feminine anxiety overtaking her silly rectitude and her resistance.  
  
They arrive at her house and he waits only to see her enter before leaving without so much as a farewell.  
  
He’ll see her soon. Tomorrow, in fact, as they tell the others about Faith’s villainy. His soul and his atonement are not so far from his mind that it doesn’t matter to him that they deal with the traitor in their midst. But is it so wrong of him to also look forward to that meeting as a chance to see just how much of his more personal mission has been accomplished?  
  
Tonight she’ll tear herself to pieces, hating herself in a myriad of ways. It serves her right for the torment he’s endured because of her. But it also serves _him_ , softening her, making her pliable. When the time is right… yes, when the time is right…  
  
He’s home now and he settles in to a cold, lonely bed – to sleep, perchance to darkly dream. But if he is who he knows himself to be, there will be a time not far off when his dreams come true.  
  
  
  
To be continued…


	15. Multiple Choice

Multiple Choice  
  
  
  
“Oh my god! You saved my life!” Okay, some might think she’s being a little – or more than a little – hyperbolic, but to Willow the sentiment is totally appropriate and she grabs Buffy and hugs her, watching over her friend’s shoulder as Percy scurries off in mortal terror of losing any chance at a basketball scholarship.   
  
When she lets go, Buffy stuffs the microcassette recorder back in her purse and says, “What are friends for? I’m just glad Percy’s as dumb as he looks.”  
  
Huh? “What do you mean?”  
  
Buffy takes the recorder back out. “It wasn’t on.”  
  
Willow’s eyes must be bulging out of her head or something because Buffy gets slightly defensive. “What? I’m not Inspector Gadget. Not like I know how to work one of these things. I bluffed.”  
  
“It was a great bluff,” Willow says with a big smile. Because it was. It was the best bluff ever. “Think he’ll say anything to Snyder?”  
  
“And admit he was dumb enough to get caught exposing this totally blatant violation of the Thirteenth Amendment on tape? Nah. I don’t think so. I think he’ll just do his own work... or bully someone else into doing it for him. As long as that someone isn’t you, however, my job is done. I can’t slay Percy. We still have a chance of making the playoffs.”  
  
It would be so great if she could be as blasé about the prospect of some other low-person-on-the-social-totem-pole being shoved into the space she so recently occupied, but Willow just can’t, not really. Still, she owes it to Buffy to fake it, so she plasters a smile on her face. Not like she isn’t grateful, after all. If Buffy knew what happened with Angel last night…  
  
Please, please, please, can she just _not_ think about that now? Or ever again? She barely got any sleep what with all the tearing each and every second of that kiss to bits wondering what she did that was so bad – and then tearing _herself_ to bits because what kind of person wants the man her best friend loves to like kissing her?   
  
What did she do to deserve any of this pain and inner turmoil? Oh no. Here comes…  
  
“Hey.” Oz smiles sweetly at her and her conscience shrieks at her and calls her horrible names, because she has to be the worst girlfriend in the whole world.   
  
She smiles more broadly than ever to hide her inner evil and parrots his greeting. “Hey.” It’s a very useful monosyllable, isn’t it? Even if her mother always used to say that hay is for horses when Willow slipped and used it in front of her. That doesn’t happen anymore – not because Willow’s more careful, but because her Mom is home less than ever. “Guess what?” She makes a very credible effort to bounce happily. “Buffy got me out of bondage!” Okay, that was inadvertently dirty, but since that’s kind of par for the course for her, it sure helps with her whole ‘look, I’m totally normal’ act.  
  
Oz raises an eyebrow slightly, so Willow babbles on. “She tricked Percy into giving up on the whole idea of forcing me to do all his work from now on.” Wow. Oz is actually smiling – well, an Oz-smile, but still, the corners of his mouth are slightly tilted upwards from the vertical. She has no idea why, but she suddenly remembers that she has something she should tell everyone. Luckily, there’s still fifteen minutes or so to first bell. “Buffy? Can you go find Xander and bring him to the library? There’s something I kind of need to tell you guys.”  
  
Buffy’s about to ask a question, but Willow cuts her off with an ‘it’s easier if I tell you all together’ kind of explanation and her friend hurries off. Oz, he of the unflappable equanimity and endless silences, would never have dreamt of asking anything, and simply takes her hand to accompany her to the one place in school where they can count on privacy to discuss the latest danger – the one from within.   
  
After everything she’s done, he somehow trusts her completely, doesn’t he? It’s extraordinary and it’s a gift and it’s humbling. Right now, at this moment, she loves Oz more than she ever has. Does that make up for the small part of her that is still hurt that Angel hated kissing her? Does Oz even look at anyone who isn’t her? God it would help to just see him check out another girl’s legs. He doesn’t, though, and she struggles to pretend that he might if she weren’t there.   
  
But soon enough those thoughts are done; they’re in the library and Giles is standing before them, Buffy and Xander hustling in just a moment after she and Oz take their places at the table they customarily use for important discussions.   
  
They’re not the only ones there. It takes a moment, but she sees Angel off in a corner. Does Giles even know he’s there? Buffy does, because she smiles and there’s a tilt of the head that beckons him just as she says, “Hey, you,” and he does in fact join them at the table. He doesn’t look at Willow once. Is she glad or sorry? She hopes it’s the former and fears it’s the latter. That fear impels her to take Oz’s hand in hers… right on top of the table for everyone – including Angel – to see.  
  
Guess she should get to the whole ‘tell’ portion of this show and tell fiesta, huh? “I was attacked by two vamps who work for the Mayor last night,” she says, cutting to the chase in a way that almost surprises her. Maybe she’s trying to keep Angel from stepping in through the coherence-hole commonly left by the excess verbiage normally replete in her fractured babbling.  
  
Of course, what follows is a cacophony of exclamations and expressions of concern, all of which are taking up the precious minutes before Snyder will come bursting through the door, nostrils flaring and eyebrows working up a storm, so she breaks out her Resolve Face, which is at least enough to silence Xander, thus making it possible for her to get some more words in edgewise. “Angel dusted them,” she doesn’t look at him as she keeps his part in the tale as minimal as she can, “but we got them to tell us they were sent after me because the Mayor found out I’m trying to hack into his files.” She pauses, eyes fixed on Buffy, her heart aching as she sees the wheels turning behind those eyes. Willow finishes the circuit for them, trying to at least keep her tone kindly even as her words are anything but. “Faith’s the only one besides us who knew about that.” And so two faiths are lost at once, Willow realizes as she watches something profound and important in Buffy’s belief system shatter into a thousand sharp, awful pieces.  
  
It’s Giles, though, who makes the last ditch effort. “Are we positive no one else could have seen… or overheard…?” His choice of pronoun is telling and she knows he’s not asking so much as trying to grab Buffy’s hands as they slip from the edge of the cliff.   
  
It’s no use, though. Angel steps in. “It was Faith.”   
  
Loathe as she is to allow even her words to be close enough to touch Angel’s, Willow agrees. “I don’t exactly talk about this stuff in public. The only time I said anything was when Faith was here yesterday. She asked what I was doing and I told her.” Shrugging regretfully, she adds, “Guess there’s no point in me trying anymore. I’m pretty sure the files are gone now.”  
  
“Not your fault,” Oz says softly in a tone that only Willow could detect is comforting. Still, she can and that’s what counts. Sadly, the effect is diminished by what she sees when she cheats a glance at Angel… who is standing behind Buffy, hands caressing her shoulders, the two of them exchanging a brief, but fond, look.  
  
Then Oz plants a soft kiss on her hand – just the barest brush of lips, but it’s enough to help clear the chaos in her head. She turns to him and gives him a half-smile as she basks in the glow of something far more meaningful than whether or not Angel liked kissing her. If she can recover from Xander, who’s so much more important to her than Angel will ever be, calling her a pasty-faced loser, then she can recover from Angel’s implied insult, especially since she is literally holding in her hand something shining and magical and perfect.  
  
Well, almost perfect… and on that subject, instead of letting stuff fester and upset her, maybe it’s time to initiate a frank but non-confrontational conversation with her guy about the very thing that Angel used to unsettle her in the first place – sex. As in the sex Oz hasn’t been willing to have with her. Because she is looking into his eyes and it sure doesn’t seem like the reason is a lack of affection on his part, so…  
  
Well, maybe they won’t have that conversation this very minute because there’s a bunch of other people here and anyway they’re talking about something way more vital in the grand scheme of things – namely, Faith and her brand new boyfriend, Mayor Wilkins. “What are we going to do?” she asks, and you have to admit, it’s a darn good question.  
  
Buffy, however, seems to be trapped in the denial stage of the grieving process - or maybe it’s the depression stage; Willow isn’t Dr. Kubler Ross so she can’t be sure. Either way, Buffy’s not in super Slayer mode and it’s bringing the general tenor of the room way down. But then Angel chimes in again. “I say we act as if everything’s normal. Go along as if we don’t know, but make sure not to tell her anything important. The more she thinks she has us fooled, the cockier she’ll get – the more careless.”  
  
“Shouldn’t we do a test or something? Feed her some false information and see if it gets back to the Mayor?”  
  
It sounds like Xander has a pretty good idea there, but, given Angel’s disdain for her best friend, maybe she shouldn’t be as surprised as she is when he snorts contemptuously. “Then when the Mayor figures out the information was bad? We lose our advantage.” Okay, that is actually a good point, though it could have been made with less condescension.  
  
“And Faith could get killed.” Buffy won’t give up hope. If Willow hadn’t almost been killed last night thanks to Faith, she might share that compassion. As it is, she has to admit, though she’d never say it out loud, that she doesn’t quite see the downside of Faith being hoist by her own petard. What does Oz think? Is he on the redemption team or does he think Faith’s used up the last of her chances? Is she a bad person if she hopes it’s the latter? Well, the way he’s squeezing her hand ever so slightly tells her that her hope might not be in vain.  
  
Angel shrugs, but Willow doesn’t really think about it. Oz is right here beside her and it doesn’t matter much whether that shrug means Angel’s for or against Faith winding up on the wrong side of the Mayor. She decides to prove to herself that she really is perfectly okay now, and so she says, “I think Angel’s right. We should probably just stick to acting normal and trying to keep her from finding stuff out.”   
  
Now he looks at her – she notices that – but she has no idea what thoughts are going on beneath his impenetrable stare. She doesn’t care anyway, does she?  
  
“Yes, well, that does seem to be the wisest course of action, at least until we can establish…”  
  
Just then the first bell rings and everyone knows what that means: time to race out the door and head to class… well, everyone except her. She’s got a free this period. So Oz kisses her cheek and she watches as he heads off with Xander and Buffy. Angel will be leaving now, too, she’s sure, so maybe she and Giles can get some research done – or she’ll pretend to still be trying to hack into the Mayor’s files just in case Faith shows up.  
  
Giles stares at her curiously for a moment, but since he knows her, it only takes him a second or two to understand and he says, “I take it this is a free period.”  
  
“Uh huh. Have anything you need me to do?”  
  
“Well, unfortunately, it would appear that continuing to try to access the Mayor’s files would be futile, so perhaps you could get a head start on seeing if there’s anything Buffy should focus on tonight? The recently deceased and such?”  
  
“Sure thing,” she says brightly, noting happily that Giles is actually being sort of polite, unlike yesterday. Then she notices something else: Angel is still here. Okay, that’s giving her a wiggins. Why hasn’t he left yet?   
  
Oh great, Giles is absentmindedly wandering over to his office. It gets better: Now he’s gone inside and closed the door. Which means she’s alone with Angel.   
  
Well, she’s not nearly as discombobulated by that as she would have been without Oz’s comforting presence this morning, so she heads for the computer without saying a word or favoring Angel with another glance. Given the level of recent demonic activity, she figures there have to be at least three or four soon-to-be-vamps to worry about tonight.  
  
Before she can even think of logging on, however, Angel is right there. “You kept your eye on the ball, backing me up.”  
  
Huh? Oh. He’s talking about her agreeing with him about not going with Xander’s idea. Which… seems like a weird thing to bring up. “You were right,” she says with a shrug, determined to act as if nothing happened at the mansion last night… or in her living room, for that matter.  
  
He’s giving her the strangest look and she’s this close to being completely unsettled again, but they’re in the library and Giles is nearby, so she’s able to maintain her composure. “It’s getting kind of bad out there. That’s gotta be connected to whatever the Mayor’s up to,” she offers conversationally as she at last logs on and immediately heads for the morgue site, her traditional first stop on her frequent trips down the information superhighway.   
“Of course,” he replies and she figures that undertone she can’t place is probably something between patronizing and contemptuous. Great. Is that based on her comment or her kissing technique? And you know what? She really needs to completely get over what he feels about _anything_.  
  
The best way to do that, or at least distract herself from thinking about it, is probably to just put her nose to the grindstone – and, while she’s thinking about it, maybe she should look up that expression because… oh never mind. The trivial pursuit can wait until she’s done checking the list of potential fledges. Wow. Five. That’s a lot, even for Sunnydale. She starts writing down the names, trying to ignore the fact that he’s still right there – staring.  
  
“Are you all right?”  
  
Huh? “Yeah. I’m fine. Why?”  
  
“After last night…”  
  
Okay – now it’s official: She hates Angel. Enough that she’s able to lie with not a scintilla of guilt for the first time ever. The expression on her face is so guileless she can feel it being etched into the dictionary under the word ‘ingenuous’ as a helpful illustration. “Why wouldn’t I be? I got attacked. You saved me. You walked me home. Kind of par for the course for me except that it’s usually Buffy who rescues me and does the walking home thing and then there’s Indian TV and ice cream afterwards.” With that, she gets right back to her notes. Not one word about the kiss or any indication that she even remembers it. Is she proud of herself or does she hate Angel more than ever for adding shameless deception to her skill set?  
  
Maybe it’s a little bit of both, because when she looks up, he’s gone.   
  
Now if only she really _could_ forget about the kissing… or at least transfer some of that sensation of utter blamelessness to the other prevarications and fibs of which she’s still totally guilty.  
  
But she can’t. So she gets back to work. Who knows? Maybe the next time the Mayor sends a hit squad after her, they’ll get the job done.  
  
  
  
To be continued…


	16. The Wrong Answer

The Wrong Answer  
  
  
  
How did little Willow spend last night? Angel wonders. Did she tear herself to pieces, tossing and turning, in too much turmoil to sleep? Or did she cry herself into a fitful slumber and dream of him? He almost wishes he’d gone to her house to spy on her, but that would have been too great a risk. Her senses might only be human, but they were still likely paranoia-sharpened after what had happened to her in the alley and she undoubtedly started at the sound of the leaves moving outside her window. No, it’s better that he stayed home, even if he’s keen and starving at the necessity of waiting to learn just how his latest gambit has paid off.  
  
He doesn’t need the clock to tell him that it’s almost time for school to be in session, but he checks it anyway, preening at its confirmation of what his senses already told him. Not every vampire’s sense of time is as sharp as his.   
  
Time to get dressed and head for the tunnels, the tunnels that will take him to Sunnydale High and a meeting where he’ll divulge the knowledge he gained last night in the alley and learn just how Willow is faring and if the seeds he sowed last night are even now bearing the dark, bitter fruit on which he longs to feast.   
  
His depraved visions and his unwholesome desires should strike fear in his heart, but they don’t. Is it strange that he feels more in control of his demon than ever now? Strange or not, he does. Maybe this is the answer, throwing the devil within a scrap of meat on which to dine every now and then, slaking the hunger of a creature so much more proud and fearsome than ever the mockery of a wolf hiding in its kennel inside Willow’s pathetic swain.  
  
What would it be like, he wonders, to take her on the bloody pelt of her lupine consort?  
  
Of course he’d never do anything like kill Oz. He’s not one to slaughter a boy simply for being an impediment to his desires, not anymore, not possessing a soul. Still, it makes for an arousing fantasy and his connection to Willow has opened up the whole world of imaginary pleasure to him, a world he’d limited to all but the blandest and most tepid of daydreams for years before he even knew Buffy and for reasons he’s long since forgotten. Self-flagellation most likely, and penance, the hair shirt of a creature the Church no longer welcomes within its holy walls.   
  
But now he’s off to the library. The tunnels are a faster route than aboveground and he prefers them, truthfully, even when there isn’t the exigency of protecting himself from the ravages of sunlight. Another fact which he’s only allowed himself to accept recently, the sign of another pretense to humanity falling before the sword of truth which he’s wielding against himself more and more. Strange how these wounds strengthen rather than diminish him. That’s a fine thing, however, considering that they’ve got quite a fight on their hands now that there’s a Slayer fighting on the side of evil. Faith’s as much a threat as any demon they’ve ever faced and the others need to be warned. For all the tumult of his personal feelings right now, he’s still got his eye on the ball.   
  
Serving the greater good, helping keep the world safe – he’s as committed as ever to those things, maybe more so since he no longer needs to love a Slayer to keep himself motivated, and if there’s a slight hypocrisy in what he’s doing to Willow, well, she wedded herself to his darkness when his soul passed through her on its way to him… and to Hell. She leapt into the abyss and if there are monsters there, then she’s lawful prey. It may be a cliché to shrug and declare that it’s not his problem, but clichés become clichés ofttimes because they’re all there is.   
  
Ah. Here he is. The entrance to the basement of the school. Emerging into the narrow corridors, he remembers another walk he took through these halls, years ago… when he’d saved Willow – and the others – from an airless, poisonous death. Funny how an event that barely registered to him then is so significant now, but he can recall in exquisite detail the feel of Willow’s body in his arms as he carried her from the boiler room, can still hear the thick, sleepy girlishness of her voice as she called to her mother. In his ignorance then, he had thought it… quaint perhaps? Now he knows her life better and is well aware what a sad, pathetic little dream it was. As if her mother was ever there.  
  
He slides into the library silently, quieter by far than even Giles’s breath against the parchment of the crumbling tome from which he’s attempting to wrest the knowledge they need. In reality, what is needed is the knowledge Angel and Willow already have.   
  
Speaking of Willow, he watches from the shadows as she enters the library… holding hands with Oz. Buffy and Xander tumble right in after them. He stays where he is for a moment, watching as they seat themselves around the main table, getting control over his emotions. It’s good that he’s no poor stick at that because Buffy spies him and beckons with a coquettish tilt of her head and an almost-throaty, “Hey, you.”  
  
So he joins the group at the table. Willow takes Oz’s hand again – on top of the table, her gesture clearly defiant though she doesn’t look at him. So this is how the game is being played.   
  
“I was attacked by two vamps who work for the Mayor last night.” She says that with no preamble and everyone, including him, is surprised by it. She’s normally not one for such a terse and direct approach to telling a story, even when it’s called for. Unlike him, however, the others don’t stay silent. The din is almost unbearable as pointless exclamations pile on top of one another like rats scrambling for escape. Nothing, he’s sure, will quiet the tumult, but then Willow’s mien changes and the loudest voice among them – belonging to Xander Harris, naturally – immediately stills. Where he leads, the others follow, and Willow’s voice is able to carry through the lower level of noise. “Angel dusted them,” she still refuses to favour him with a glance even as she brings him into the recounting, “but we got them to tell us they were sent after me because the Mayor found out I’m trying to hack into his files.”  
  
His hands are on Buffy’s shoulders and he can feel her stiffen. As concerned as she is for her best friend, he can tell she’s really waiting for the other shoe to drop. He decides to let Willow finish the job. “Faith’s the only one besides us who knew about that.”  
  
With that, the air is sucked out of the room, though he’s frankly shocked by that. Did they really think a pep talk from Buffy was going to cure Faith of what ailed her? Are they all so impossibly naïve?   
  
It would seem so since he can almost smell the tang of Buffy’s disillusionment and despair. Is she more affected by her fellow Slayer’s defection than by Willow’s narrow escape from death? He doesn’t think that’s the case, it’s just that he knows Buffy – she’s a creature of the here and now. For her, Willow having been saved negates the need to worry about it today. Faith’s betrayal is ongoing and immediate and thus will occupy a far greater portion of her thoughts and command her concern. He might argue with those priorities on a personal level, but he can’t deny that it’s that kind of thinking which makes Buffy a great Slayer.   
  
But the first expression of denial, when it comes, isn’t from Buffy. “Are we positive no one else could have seen… or overheard…?”  
  
Giles? Angel’s ashamed of the man now. He decides it’s time for his own voice to be heard. “It was Faith.”  
  
Then Willow adds, “I don’t exactly talk about this stuff in public. The only time I said anything was when Faith was here yesterday. She asked what I was doing and I told her,” and Angel realizes that Giles was impugning her discretion. Another mark against the man. Angry though he might be with the girl, along with that is keen admiration and an appreciation of her virtues, one of which is her devotion to duty. This is one who doesn’t tell tales out of school. But one thing she does do is put herself down. “Guess there’s no point in me trying anymore. I’m pretty sure the files are gone now.”   
  
“Not your fault.” For once Angel agrees with Oz. If Buffy hadn’t been so adamant that Faith be given a second chance… but if there’s one pipe dream whose opium-smoke his one-time love will breathe until the death rattle stills her lungs, it’s that all Slayers by being called accept being a Slayer as a calling. Faith is more than just the path not taken – she’s the path Buffy can’t bear to believe has ever been hewn out of the mountain of responsibilities and duties that she never thought could be separated from the special powers and abilities that it takes to perform those tasks. Faith is the tart-tongued serpent in Buffy’s Eden.  
  
She hasn’t got a patch on _him_ , however, because he’s got his own Eve to torment and tempt. To that end, he answers Buffy’s soft, fond look with one to match it and squeezes her shoulder sympathetically. But when he cheats a glance at Willow, he sees Oz kiss her hand. His guns have been spiked. “What are we going to do?”  
  
Her question at least offers him the chance to wrest her attention away from her scrawny Lochinvar. “I say we act as if everything’s normal. Go along as if we don’t know, but make sure not to tell her anything important. The more she thinks she has us fooled, the cockier she’ll get – the more careless.”  
  
Naturally, the village idiot feels the need to offer a ridiculous suggestion, no doubt prompted by his groin-based wish to believe in Faith’s inherent goodness. “Shouldn’t we do a test or something? Feed her some false information and see if it gets back to the Mayor?”   
  
Angel snorts, unable and unwilling to contain his contempt for Xander’s stupidity. “Then when the Mayor figures out the information was bad? We lose our advantage.”  
  
“And Faith could get killed.” It takes all the restraint he _didn’t_ exercise on Xander’s behalf to hold back his true feelings about Buffy’s priorities and it’s only knowing her well enough to understand just how deep that fear of what lies beneath Faith’s shiny scales runs which makes it possible. So he shrugs, feigning nonchalance.  
  
“I think Angel’s right. We should probably just stick to acting normal and trying to keep her from finding stuff out.” Willow’s calmly delivered words are surprising. Is she trying to win her way back into his favour? No, he’s not that fortunate. There’s a game afoot and this time he’s not the one in control of the field. He stares for a moment, trying to figure her out, untangle this new knot, but then Giles speaks and he has to get his head back into the matter of Faith and the Mayor.  
  
“Yes, well, that does seem to be the wisest course of action, at least until we can establish…”  
  
Angel’s thoughts are not all that get interrupted; the shrill of the school bell is as commanding as ever the voice of a general. Even Buffy leaps from her chair and rushes out the door. Oz kisses Willow’s cheek, then joins the herd. In less than a minute he and Giles are alone in the library… with Willow, who ignores him, eyes focused on Giles as he observes, “I take it this is a free period.”  
  
“Uh huh. Have anything you need me to do?” She smiles, voice chirpy and bright. It’s as if Angel isn’t even in the room and his ire builds.   
  
Giles is oblivious to any and all tension. Some Watcher, though Angel is grateful for the blinders the man seems to have glued in place. “Well, unfortunately, it would appear that continuing to try to access the Mayor’s files would be futile, so perhaps you could get a head start on seeing if there’s anything Buffy should focus on tonight? The recently deceased and such?”  
  
“Sure thing.” The chipper demeanour remains and she is still conducting herself as if she has no idea he’s there. He’s going to do something about that.  
  
Fate seems to be on his side as Giles wanders absentmindedly into his office… and shuts the door, earning himself entrée into Angel’s good books.   
  
Willow heads straight to the computer and he follows. Now would be the time to initiate conversation. He decides that something friendly, even grateful, would be the right opening and so he says, “You kept your eye on the ball, backing me up.”  
  
For a moment she seems confused, but then she shrugs and says, “You were right.” He’s searching but there’s no trace of what he’s looking for and he can feel ire turning to rage, but he keeps the fires banked.  
  
“It’s getting kind of bad out there.” She turns on the computer as she speaks, tapping at the keys with the ease born of routine as she barely looks at what she’s doing. “That’s gotta be connected to whatever the Mayor’s up to.”   
  
“Of course.” She has a point and he does respect that last night’s attack hasn’t even slightly dampened her enthusiasm for the fight against evil. Still, it’s the other events of last night of which he was hoping to see greater evidence in her manner. It doesn’t appear that she lost so much as a moment’s sleep.   
  
He watches her carefully as she scans the screen, obviously seeing something of interest since she begins jotting down information. Must be the names of potential fledglings since that’s what she told Giles she’d be looking for online. No chatter and her manner continues calm and unshaken.  
  
He can’t stand it for another moment. It’s time to poke and see if there’s a wound at all. “Are you all right?”  
  
“Yeah. I’m fine. Why?” Confusion again. Not what he was looking for.  
  
He tries again. “After last night…”  
  
Her response leaves him reeling. With wide eyes and a sincerely innocent and guileless expression, she says, “Why wouldn’t I be? I got attacked. You saved me. You walked me home. Kind of par for the course for me except that it’s usually Buffy who rescues me and does the walking home thing and then there’s Indian TV and ice cream afterwards.” With that, she turns back to her computer, tapping and note-taking with complete absorption.   
  
Even knowing that he’s conceding defeat by doing so, he leaves, not at all sure what he would do were he to stay. There’s white hot fury roaring within him now as he hurries through the basement and back down into the tunnels, but much of it is directed inward. This is all his fault. He played this badly and now, with hindsight, he can see what he fool he was. The corner he thought he’d backed Willow into had always had an obvious escape route and she’d headed straight for it… Oz’s embrace. She’s used the boy to bandage any damage Angel might have done to her womanly self-esteem and rebuilt the wall that once separated them besides. Conscious effort or unconscious luck – whatever was in play – Willow has proven to be far trickier and more elusive than he’d imagined she could be…  
  
… and he wants her more than ever. She’ll be a conquest, a truly worthy conquest, but she’s more than just some way to prove his steel.   
  
It’s no coincidence, is it, that she and no one else was the one who restored his soul, that somehow he’s connected to her in a way he never was to the gypsy who first cursed him.   
  
So all right, he made some mistakes, but he’ll fix them and in doing so he’ll bring her back where she belongs.   
  
Because it’s not just his desire – it’s destiny… _their_ destiny. He knows it now, and soon enough, she’ll know it too.  
  
  
  
To be continued…


	17. In the Mushroom Cellar

In the Mushroom Cellar  
  
  
  
Willow’s angry, very angry, and what makes it worse is that she can’t express it – not to anyone. So here she is, alone in her room, wishing she were the kind of person who broke things because she’d love to throw her lamp at the wall and scream while she watches it shatter. But since she’s the kind of person who’d feel terrible and guilty before it even hit the target, she can’t. All she can do is sit on her bed while the emotions make her body shake and bring tears to her eyes.  
  
Being her sucks.  
  
Being her means being the girl who’s never in the loop; the girl who gets lied to and deceived and who ends up worrying for no reason at all and then, when it’s all over, it’s ‘olly, olly, oxen free’ and everything is supposed to be a-okay again like nothing happened.  
  
Yeah, all right, she gets that Buffy’s the Slayer and Giles is the Watcher – no matter what the stupid Council says – and she’s just a civilian and that this was some big stealth operation to get Faith to spill her guts, but is it just her or was Faith more than a little gutless? Because, gosh, gee whiz, now they know the date of the Ascension and… well, there’s actually no ‘and’ at all, not even any more details about what it all means. Guess Willow’s not alone, huh? Because Faith doesn’t seem to get told much more by the Mayor than Willow learns from Buffy.  
  
Okay, identifying with Faith does not in any way, shape, or form make her feel better.  
  
Remembering that Xander, too, was among the sidekicks in the dark doesn’t help either, though at least seeing him in the same category as herself doesn’t make her queasy.  
  
If only she could talk to Oz, but she just knows he’ll think she’s way overreacting and she can’t risk even the tiniest rift in their relationship because it’s all she has. It’s what’s holding her together and making her feel whole and complete and keeping the confusion at bay. As long as she’s Oz’s girl, she knows she’s beautiful and lovable and enough.  
  
So here she is – sitting and stewing and feeling miserable.  
  
And now, because she’s nowhere near miserable enough, she starts thinking about something else: Angel kissing Faith. Did he like it? Does he think Faith was better than… no, not her, but Buffy, yeah, absolutely Buffy. Because Willow so doesn’t care that Angel pushed her away like she had some contagious disease the last time he kissed her, but she does care about Buffy, who’s her best friend even though she’s still sort of mad at her.  
  
All right, she’s alone and lying to herself seems… weird and wrong, so she’ll admit, a part of her _does_ wonder if Angel thinks Faith was better than her, but only because she really hates Faith for being skanky and evil and for trying to have her killed – which, hey, Angel was there for so he should really hate her for that too.  
  
Then again, as she’s learned from Xander, when it comes to Faith, guys tend to do all their thinking below the waist. Which is kind of the exact opposite of the way they think about _her_. She’s the ‘above the waist’ girl all the way – or, to be accurate, anything _but_ all the way, since it’s not like any guy in her life wants to go there with her.  
  
Thinking about sex is never going to be anything but depressing and it would be absolutely great if puberty would hurry up and end or just go away or something, anything, that would allow her to be as blissfully chaste in spirit and body as a nun, or whatever the Jewish equivalent of a nun might be. All these hormones are really getting her down.  
  
Of course, there are plenty of other really awful things to worry about too and her mind sets to work with a will, stirring all of them into the contemplative pot. Her brain hates her.  
  
She’s bogged down in contemplating the unpleasant idea that if the Mayor wins the day – not only will she die a virgin, but she won’t even be a high school graduate – when there’s a knock at her balcony doors. No need to ask who it is. It’s gotta be Buffy, right? So, without so much as a by your leave, Willow gets up, goes to the door, and flings it open. “Hey there, Buf…”  
  
It’s not Buffy.  
  
It’s Angel.  
  
“Hi,” she stammers as she stares at her unexpected visitor. “What are you doing here?”  
  
Should she invite him in? After all, she can always do the uninvite spell again later and it’s not like there’s anything to worry about anyway – not anymore. Maybe if he’d answer her, she’d know what to do.  
  
“I want to apologize,” he says. Really? Why? “We should have told you. After what Faith tried to do to you… you should have been in on the plan.”  
  
The fact that someone is validating her feelings… the fact that it’s Angel… She feels like a balloon slowly leaking air and, without thinking, she steps back and offers a ‘come in’ that probably sounds as disconnected as she feels.  
  
“Thanks.” Did she say that in time for it to make sense? Angel being in her bedroom is already fogging her senses and it’s hard to tell how many seconds are passing. “I… It’s okay. I mean about you not telling me. I get that it was supposed to be secret and all.” Maybe she’s not completely at that place yet, but she’s glad she can at least say it believably. She loves Buffy too much to completely give in to Angel’s tempting reinforcement of her fit of pique.  
  
Or maybe she finds the idea of accepting comfort from him a little unnerving. After all, she hated him a couple of days ago and she still… actually, she doesn’t know how she feels now.  
  
“How are you?” His eyes are soft and brown and full of concern and for all that she knows he’s not the least bit attracted to her anymore, she’s uncomfortable with the level of feeling she thinks she perceives. But her emotions have been running high, so she shuts down the warning bells and chides herself inwardly: Melodramatic much?  
  
“I’m fine. I was just… I was about to get ready to go to bed.” It’s not quite ‘here’s your hat, what’s your hurry?’ but it’s on the edge of being rude and Willow feels sort of bad about saying it.  
  
Or maybe not – because Angel’s making no move to leave. Is it just her or is that even ruder than she was? For all he knows, she badly needs to go to bed right now because she’s worn out, or even sick, but here he stays.  
  
“Is there something else?” She’s getting really uncomfortable with the way he’s just standing there, almost staring rather than merely looking at her.  
  
“Are you sure you’re okay?”  
  
What kind of question is that? “I’m fine. Really. Just tired, that’s all.” He’s still staring and it’s unnerving her… to the point where she asks a question that ensures she won’t be alone anytime soon. “Are _you_ okay?” The look on his face… she’s kind of glad she asked, if only to make up for nearly pushing him out the door. Now she gets why he wasn’t leaving. It’s obvious he’s upset and wants to talk to someone.  
  
She remembers awhile back when he’d tried so hard to be her friend. Yeah, okay, things went sort of – or not so sort of – sideways, but maybe tonight is the time to fix things. She’s forgiven people for a lot worse than what Angel’s done, hasn’t she? Her mind wanders back to the horrible things Xander said when he was possessed by the hyena… Yeah, she has definitely forgiven people for worse. Did Xander really think she wouldn’t look up possession? She knows darn well he remembers every single thing he did… and he’s never apologized for any of it.  
  
Why is she thinking about that right now?  
  
Out of nowhere she wonders if that’s why she kissed him, let it go so far. Was it some kind of bandage for old wounds?  
  
For the first time, Angel becomes the emotional refuge, that thing to which she runs in order to escape something painful in her thoughts. “Are you okay?” she repeats.  
  
He sighs and looks around and she goes to the chair at her desk, pulling it out for him, but he doesn’t sit, so neither does she. She watches as he looks around yet again, wondering if he’s ever going to speak, but then he finally does say something. “She blames me.”  
  
“Who? Buffy?” And what is she blaming him for? Because it’s not like it’s his fault that the Mayor doesn’t trust Faith.  
  
Angel nods. “Yeah. She blames me, or maybe it’s more accurate to say she’s angry with me, even though she says she isn’t.”  
  
The warning bells in her head start going off like there’s a fire at an orphanage but Willow can’t stop herself from asking, “Why is she mad?”  
  
“Faith.” It’s one word and only one word, but there’s something about the way he says it… the look in his eyes… Willow tells herself it’s just foolish melodrama on her part, but she’s twitching nonetheless.  
  
So she does what she always does – she acts as if everything is okay and trusts that it is… or that it will _become_ that way if she just keeps acting like it already is. “She’s mad because you didn’t get more information?”  
  
He shakes his head and looks down; for a moment she can’t quite see his expression. Then he looks up, utterly innocent. “She’s upset that I had to kiss her. To pretend that I wanted her.”  
  
The word ‘pretend’… he says it so casually that Willow almost believes it, but she still can’t stop herself from blurting out, “Pretend?”  
  
There’s a fleeting flash of… no, that wasn’t a smirk on his face. He’s just surprised by her question, that’s all. “Of course I was pretending. Not that Buffy realizes that.”  
  
He seems… offended and Willow feels guilty. Everything else aside, he saved her life the other night and she really does owe him. She tries to smooth things over. “I’m sorry. I guess I just… I mean, Faith’s not exactly ugly or anything. I can see why Buffy might think… But I know you love her, so you wouldn’t…”  
  
Again Angel shakes his head. “I’m not attracted to Faith. You know that.” Those last words send a chill up her spine, especially because he takes a step toward her while saying them.  
  
“Well, yeah,” she says, wanting to take a step back but forcing herself not to, “I mean, you love Buffy, so of course you aren’t attracted to Faith. That would be wrong.” The words come out stumbling and awkward and they taste of fear. Can Angel tell?  
  
That can’t be a chuckle she just heard and it probably isn’t because his expression is stern. “She tried to kill you.” Which shouldn’t be his reason and she’s trying to pretend that it isn’t – that part of her almost wants it to be – or at least not the main one. No, the main one is that he’s madly in love with Buffy. That’s how it should be.  
  
“Well, it wasn’t actually her,” she says, wondering why she’s defending Faith… deep down knowing exactly why she’s defending Faith.  
  
Angel’s eyes darken and he takes another step closer. She should back up. No, she shouldn’t. “She doesn’t have the guts to do her own killing. Not when it’s someone she knows.” Willow knows what that tone is – it’s contempt. There’s a demon in her bedroom.  
  
When her mind flashes back to how it felt when he held her, she feels dirty and wants him to leave so she can take a scalding hot shower and scrub away the badness.  
  
“I bet you’re glad about that, seeing as how she was fighting Buffy and all.”  
  
Another step closer. Now he’s right in front of her. “I’m glad she didn’t kill _you_.” As he speaks, he reaches out and strokes her cheek.  
  
Now she really _should_ back away, but she can’t. She does at least protest softly, though. “Angel…no.”  
  
It doesn’t do any good – did she really believe it would? – he leans in and kisses her.  
  
Too late she remembers the humiliation of being pushed away, because now? Being held in Angel’s arms? She is incapable of doing anything but wrapping her arms around him in return and moaning into the mouth which is skillfully moving against hers. Think of Oz, her conscience screams, but she can’t even bring his face to mind. She’s lost, spinning into the darkness.  
  
It’s cold here, even as her body burns, because her brain still works and it’s bracing her for the moment when Angel pushes her away – again.  
  
But time passes and the kiss goes on and he isn’t pushing her away.  
  
Which means she should be pushing _him_ away… only she doesn’t do that either. Instead she arches against him as his hands start exploring her body and his mouth moves to her neck. “No,” she moans, but it sounds a lot like ‘yes’ and that’s exactly how Angel is taking it. Can she blame him?  
  
Her hands stay in blameless territory but his are moving lower and then back up and he’s… oh god, he’s undoing the straps to her overalls. This absolutely, positively has to stop right this second…  
  
… but it doesn’t. “Angel,” she pleads.  
  
“Shh,” he murmurs into her ear, “You’re safe.”  
  
Really? Because she doesn’t feel safe. But is she kicking him? Stomping on his foot? Protesting loudly? No, no, and no again. What she is doing is allowing his hands to move to her breasts, moaning as her nipples harden and tighten against hands which, she hates to admit, are more adept at arousing her than Oz’s hands have ever been.  
  
Seconds later, she’s on her back on her bed, Angel moving over her. Okay: Danger, Will Rosenberg. This time she really is going to protest strenuously, but now her overalls have been pushed down and Angel’s hand is between her legs and… she’d be embarrassed at how wet she is except that he’s doing this really amazing thing with his fingers and she can barely breathe, let alone think.  
  
Her brain suddenly decides to work well enough to replay her earlier thoughts about why she’d kissed Xander and she thinks that what was true then is even truer now, but it changes nothing. A band aid for her bleeding self-esteem this may be, but she’s doing nothing to end it and she knows this is more of a transgression against Oz than anything she did with Xander ever was.  
  
Angel’s fingers are relentless in their work and there’s a feeling building that… she was sure she’d had an orgasm once when she was making out with Oz, but if that was an orgasm, she has no idea what to call this. It’s big and consuming and almost scary and she wants it to stop.  
  
She hopes it never ends.  
  
But it does. It ends with the knot on her belly exploding and she cries out something that she thinks might have been Angel’s name and her whole body is shaking and then Angel’s voice is in her ear.  
  
“Mine.”  
  
That word brings the horrible truth of what she’s just done crashing down on her head. Oh god. She is the worst friend, the worst girlfriend, the worst… the worst anything in the whole world. She sits up immediately, tears already forming in her eyes. “You have to go,” she says, “Now. Please. You have to go.”  
  
The eyes that had stared into hers so human a few minutes ago now flash gold, but he gets up… and licks his fingers. Her skin flames scarlet hot. She knows exactly what he’s tasting. “This isn’t over.” A moment later, he’s gone.  
  
But she knows he means what he said.  
  
No point in doing the uninvite spell again, is there?  
  
Why? Why did she let him into her room in the first place?  
  
She refastens her overalls, feeling dirty and slutty and skankier than Faith. Tomorrow she has to face Buffy… and Oz. What is she going to do?  
  
  
  
To be continued…


	18. What Is Done in the Darkness

What Is Done in the Darkness  
  
  
  
It’s finally happened: Angel’s been pushed to the point where he’s questioning just how much he truly deserves all the blame which has been heaped upon him – by others and even by himself.   
  
All he’s guilty of is doing exactly – _exactly_ – what Buffy asked of him: pretend to lose his soul, do whatever it took to convince Faith he was on her team, then get the traitorous bitch to spill her guts. So he did it, and it didn’t involve anything Buffy didn’t expect, but he’s still dealing with her teenage angst… and all this when she should have her head down and her thoughts focused on whatever the hell this Ascension thing is supposed to be. Because any upside to her deciding they need ‘a break’ is subsumed by the fact that what that means is that she expects him to avoid meetings and research sessions so she can ‘heal’… which means he’ll be out of the loop when he’s most needed.  
  
What the hell was he thinking when he got involved with this girl?  
  
Probably the same thing he was thinking when he met Darla, and that’s no credit to his maturity.  
  
Never thought he’d see the day when he’d consider Darla the matrix for his relationship with Buffy, but as much as hates what he sees in the mirror of this insight, he has to admit to the truth. Blonde hair, a generous display of perky tit, and all his blood – even now that it’s borrowed – migrates south and he enters into unions with the corresponding level of taste, sophistication, and forethought.  
  
Or that’s how it was, anyway, before his sojourn in Hell.   
  
Before his soul touched Willow’s on its way home.  
  
On the subject of Willow: How does she feel about everything that happened tonight? He’s honest enough with himself to admit that he hopes that the same jealousy he finds so annoying and counterproductive in Buffy has been excited in _her_ , though he’s not sure he can count on it.  
  
He’s over the anger he’d felt at her over the little game she played in the library; in fact, he almost admires her for it now. The girl has pride and gumption and neither are ultimately unattractive – far from it. However, virtues though those qualities might be, he has not only lost his advantage but considerable ground beside and he knows it.  
  
Especially after today.  
  
Why didn’t he warn her? He can only imagine how terrified she must have been. As the one responsible for burying his demon beneath the soul yet again, she had to fear the kind of retribution described only in the darkest volumes of the Watchers Diaries. But no, he acceded to Buffy and Giles’s demands that the plan stay between the three of them alone.  
  
Ah, the plan – that wonderful plan. Other than the aspect of it which involved saving him from having his soul torn from him, he doesn’t think it was a rousing success. They know the date of the Ascension now as well as… that’s it, isn’t it? Faith knew little more than they already had figured out without her help. Looks like the Mayor doesn’t trust the bitch any more than Angel ever has.  
  
But all that means is that the whole psychodrama was about as useful as Spike… at least when his mouth wasn’t full.   
  
Thoughts of the boy once known as William only brought to mind everything he’d been forced to do with Faith today. He doesn’t find her at all attractive, but her actions certainly brought his physical needs to the fore and he’d been hard pressed – literally as well as figuratively – not to take what she was so eager to give. Screwing her wouldn’t have come near to costing him his soul, but she’d have broadcast the event to all and sundry and that would have extracted from him a payment almost as dear.   
  
Damn her for a cheap whore for being able to wreck his self-control without even being the one he desires.   
  
With a growl, he throws caution to the wind and storms out of his house. His destination? The home of the one girl he _does_ wish he could use to slake his appetites.   
  
It doesn’t take him long at all to arrive at Willow’s house, or to realize that he seems to have chosen an opportune time for his visit. Her parents aren’t with her in the house tonight and Oz, that flea-bitten irritant, isn’t here either. Luck, it seems, while a fickle mistress, isn’t entirely faithless.  
  
He knocks on her balcony doors and is a bit nonplussed by the greeting he gets when she flings them open. “Hey there, Buf…” Why on Earth did she think it would be Buffy showing up tonight? But she did and he watches the progress of expression on her face as she adjusts to the identity of her actual visitor.  
  
Her greeting changes, but not entirely gracefully. “Hi. Angel. What are you doing here?”  
  
It takes him but a second to control any annoyance; her confusion at his appearance at her home tonight is to blame for the lapse in etiquette. He should rejoice in the fact that nothing in her words or manner suggests hostility. That gives him an unexpected but welcome opportunity to soften her feelings, perhaps even regain entrée into her home. “I want to apologize.” Bingo! The look on her face tells him he’s playing this game exactly right. “We should have told you. After what Faith tried to do to you… you should have been in on the plan.”  
  
Willow’s eyes are hollow and her mouth is soft and slack as she mumbles a ‘come in’ that serves well enough to allow him back into her bedroom. What, he wonders, is behind the intensity of her reaction to a simple apology?  
  
Waiting for her to speak is almost interminable, but then she says, “Thanks. I… It’s okay. I mean about you not telling me. I get that it was supposed to be secret and all.” Ah! Now he gets it. He’s seen it before, the anxiety and sense of injustice she feels about being treated as something ‘less than’ and how much she tries to bury those feelings deep, to deny that they exist at all. Now that he’s all but told her that not only does he see them, but that she has a right to them…  
  
Of course, he knows better than to evince any awareness at all, so instead he fixes her with a concerned gaze and says, “How are you?”   
  
She’s fighting the urge to fidget and it’s clear she’s suddenly uncomfortable with being alone in her bedroom with him… Little Red Riding Hood has realized that there are far more dangerous creatures than wolves, now hasn’t she? “I’m fine. I was just… I was about to get ready to go to bed.”  
  
Oh yes, she’s very nervous and that’s enough to allow him to brush off this latest bit of entirely out of character rudeness. He stays right where he is, silent and seemingly uncomprehending of her implicit request for him to leave, waiting to see just what her next move might be.   
  
The quiet time is filled with an assessment of her childish attire. Overalls? They’re not becoming, but that can be said for most of her clothes and there’s something about them he likes – evidence of innocence, he supposes. No woman would wear those, only a girl with a girl’s unconsciousness of her own body.  
  
He’s been banking on his abstention from speech to unsettle her enough to make her stumble, lose even more of her advantage, and he’s right – at least, so far, about unsettling her. She finally says something and it’s an awkwardly blurted out, “Is there something else?” Her being so uncharacteristically rude this many times s clearly demonstrates how much he discomfits her… and that means something.   
  
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asks, retaining his pose as the concerned friend.   
  
“I’m fine. Really. Just tired, that’s all.” She seems truly irritated now but his eyes stay locked on her and then… the door to everything he wants opens as she turns the question back on him. “Are _you_ okay?”  
  
Those words… she might not realize it, but she cares, and that’s a victory he’s savoring even as he stays mentally focused and analytical, though where to go next is a pathetically simple calculation. After all, it’s all about Buffy, isn’t it?  
  
Still, he can’t appear to give in easily. He says nothing, but lets his pain and frustration show on his face. They aren’t feigned, after all. He truly does feel unjustly maligned and ill-used by Buffy and more than angry and disgusted with Faith.   
  
As he pretends to be lost in his own feelings, he carefully watches the play of emotions on _her_ face. There are things happening below that smooth, soft skin; those green eyes; that expressive mouth. If only he knew what they were.   
  
Someday all he’ll have to do is ask, and she’ll obey – spilling forth all her secrets before him like jewels at his feet.   
  
His brief distraction is a good thing, adding to the effect he’s trying to achieve and drawing from her a repeated, “Are you okay?”  
  
He responds with a sigh, and looks around, wanting to enjoy the spectacle of her dancing to the tune of his slightest nonverbal cue. It works. She thinks he’s looking for a place to sit and he’s bemused as she pulls out the chair at her desk. Of course he doesn’t sit; he keeps looking around. He waits a moment, and then a moment later, before he finally turns sorrowful eyes to her and says, “She blames me.”  
  
“Who? Buffy?” she asks, as if she’s shocked. Amazing how she deifies her friend. Or is it just that she’s still telling herself the same fairy tales Buffy does… though for vastly different reasons.   
  
Buffy is looking for a castle in which to live.  
  
Willow is looking for a fortress in which to hide.  
  
But there’s no consciousness of any of this in his response. “Yeah. She blames me, or maybe it’s more accurate to say she’s angry with me, even though she says she isn’t.”  
  
“Why is she mad?” Is she really so ignorant of the way Buffy’s mind works?  
  
“Faith.” That one word sets clouds to forming in Willow’s eyes and Angel can barely keep from crowing. So she _is_ jealous of Angel’s feigned dalliance with the traitor no longer in their midst. Of course he’d _hoped_ that was the case, but having it confirmed… well, that’s a treat indeed.   
  
Luckily, his talent for dissimulation is no mean thing and he manages to keep his pride buried beneath a soft, soulful gaze as he waits for her to ask more questions.  
  
“She’s mad because you didn’t get more information?” Here’s a girl who at least has her eye on the ball because _Angel_ is certainly upset about that. Buffy never mentioned it.  
  
Well, sometimes honesty really is the best policy. Time to puncture someone else’s illusions. “She’s upset that I had to kiss her. To pretend that I wanted her.”  
  
Oh the beauty of a single word because it manages to elicit further confirmation that Willow is indeed affected by him. “Pretend?”  
  
Her envy is as green as ever her eyes. He has to fight to bring his countenance back under submission. Did she see…? No, he doesn’t think so. “Of course I was pretending. Not that Buffy realizes that.” He sighs again, every inch the put-upon lover, wondering what her response will be.  
  
It’s but a second until he finds out. “I’m sorry. I guess I just… I mean, Faith’s not exactly ugly or anything. I can see why Buffy might think… But I know you love her, so you wouldn’t…” He can almost see slim white legs carrying her as fast as can be into the safety of a keep labeled ‘Angel and Buffy Forever.’   
  
Too bad for her that it’s a mirage. Shaking his head, he takes a step, closing the gap between them. “I’m not attracted to Faith. You know that.”  
  
She’s trembling now. The slightest of movements, too slight for mortal eyes, but he’s no human and her fear sings to him as does her halting stammer as she clings tightly to her precious illusion. “Well yeah. I mean, you love Buffy, so of course you aren’t attracted to Faith. That would be wrong.”  
  
Not one step backward does she make. It’s probably her fear that to do so would acknowledge what’s happening, but he likes to think that it’s also something deep within her admitting that she wants him too, that she’s tired of her little games and her furry eunuch, that she knows… He makes one more move toward bringing the truth to light. “She tried to kill you.”  
  
Sadly, she’s still got enough wind left in her resistance for one more sprint into the fields. “Well, it wasn’t actually her.” How terrified she must be to stumble into defending Faith, however ineptly.  
  
Her words, however, bring forth the contempt he truly feels. “She doesn’t have the guts to do her own killing. Not when it’s someone she knows,” he says, thinking not just of Willow, but of a moment in the mansion when she could have...  
  
“I bet you’re glad about that, seeing as how she was fighting Buffy and all,” she says, but her pretense is beginning to sound hollow. Her nerves are jumping; he’s reminded her of what he is. Good. Best she remember it.  
  
Now is the time to end this dance. “I’m glad she didn’t kill _you_.” With that, he steps forward again. He’s right in front of her and she doesn’t retreat. Good girl. Reaching out, he strokes her cheek.  
  
“Angel…no,” she says softly, but the words don’t fit the tune and they both know it. He leans in and kisses her.  
  
Is she afraid he’ll do what he did before. He hopes so for now, because it will keep her insecure and desperate to please, just as she is at this moment – arms wrapped around him, moaning into his mouth, so eager to prove herself as a woman.  
  
The kiss goes on and he can feel her confusion and fear even as she can’t stop herself from giving in, allowing his hands to move freely over her body. He’s enjoying this chance to explore. There are gentle curves under this shapeless monstrosity of a garment and he can hardly wait to familiarize himself with them. “No,” she moans, as his mouth moves to her neck, but it’s a sound, that’s all, because she’s arching into his touch as he unfastens her overalls and begins to caress her breasts.  
  
There are no words for how delightful he’s finding her responsiveness as her nipples harden against his hands and she gasps her pleasure. What he wants more than anything is to throw her down on the bed and ride her hard till she forgets her own name and pain and ecstasy become one and the same, but she isn’t ready for that and he’s not as sure of his soul as he needs to be.  
  
Tonight will be all about her… and she’ll have to own it completely, won’t she? So yes, he does maneuver her onto her back on her girlish bed, but he contents himself with pushing down her coveralls and stroking the soft flesh between her legs through her panties.   
  
She’s wet – soaking – and his cock is hard enough to burst. A good thing he’d learned restraint from Darla long ago, and learned it well. His fingers find their way beneath damp cotton and he concentrates on bringing her more pleasure than she ever dreamed could come from the mere touch of a man’s hand. Bet Oz has never taken her anywhere near this high.  
  
Her body is straining to reach release and she’s keening now, wordless sounds of pleasure until one last stroke of Angel’s finger against the wall of that sweet, hot pussy takes her there and she cries out, “Angel!”  
  
He can’t help himself; he growls into her ear, “Mine.”  
  
At that moment, he can feel her fear of what she knows she’s done take hold. She immediately sits up, tears swimming in her eyes. “You have to go,” she begs, “Now. Please. You have to go.”  
  
Should he have expected this one last burst of resistance? He thinks he should have and for that reason he doesn’t react with anger. Instead, he puts the fingers coated in her release to his lips and licks them. He has to admit, her blush is alluring… still so innocent even after what she let him do to her tonight. “This isn’t over.” With that, he leaves, smiling all the way home.  
  
Willow will pass a guilt-ridden and tormented night. However will she face Buffy and Oz tomorrow?   
  
He’s complicated things, he admits, and the unity of the group is vital to defeating the Mayor, but he can help her, school her in the art of maintaining a façade, of doing what needs to be done for the time being. This can ultimately be to his benefit. When the crisis has been averted and good has triumphed, she’ll realize how much she truly needs him. After all, even with his tutoring, she won’t be able to pretend past dire necessity; it’s not in her. So what will she do? Where will she go?  
  
Angel knows exactly where she’ll go – to the only door which will still be open to her.  
  
He’ll be there.  
  
  
  
To be continued…


End file.
